Tutorial

The following tutorial covers the basic functionality available in the PCP Strip Chart tool, kmchart. Once PCP (Performance Co-Pilot), Qt4, and kmchart are installed, run the kmchart command or click on the PCP Charts icon to begin.

Main Window

On starting the PCP Chart (kmchart) tool with no command line arguments, the initial display shows a menu, toolbar, and a live time axis.

The vacant area above the time axis is the blank canvas for your charts – we'll get to this shortly, but take a moment to digest the main window.

The time axis along the bottom of the window scrolls with the current time, updated every second, by default (this is also called the sample interval).

To the left of the time axis is the time control status button.

The blue arrow signifies that (live) time is moving forward. Pressing the button once will show the Time Control tool, kmtime, pressing it a second time hides it.

The time controls allow you to modify various aspects of the flow of time in your charts, and clearly displays the current time position.

A VCR paradigm is used to allow stopping and starting the flow of time, and in the case of historical data (PCP archives), allow movement both forwards and backwards through time, and allow fast, slow, or step-by-step updates to the displayed data.

Views

The toolbar along the top of the window has a blue folder icon for Views. The File menu provides access to the same functionality via the "Open View" item.

Click on the blue Views folder, to bring up the “Open View” window.

This window initially displays a list of common performance views (these are the pre-installed System Views). These views have been found to be useful by others over many years, and will be abe in t=100% BORDER=0 CELLPADDING=0 CELLSPACING=0 STYLE="page-break-before: always">

There are several modes of playback available in archive mode:

Normal mode, where time updates are sent to the client at a continuous rate (usually not too different to the original live recording), as determined by the "Speed" wheel setting.
Step mode, where time is only advanced/retreated (by clicking on the Step button) one sample at a time.
Fast mode, where time is moved quickly in either a fast forward or fast rewind direction, and the visible charts are updated as quickly as possible.

The Speed setting can be changed by directly editing the text entry box, or more simply by selecting and rotating the wheel either left or right. Speed is only relevent in Normal mode.

In archive mode, the Position text box is editable, and any valid PCP timestamp can be entered here. Alternatively, and more simply, the archive mode provides a slider beneath the Position text box allowing the time position to be set directly using the pointing device (click, drag, and release at the desired time position).

One last feature specific to archive mode, is the Time Bounds dialog. This window, available from the Options menu, displays the start and end position for all archives presented to kmchart (and hence kmtime). The editable Start and End position text boxes (and associated sliders) allow the time updates to be restricted to a specific time range. Once archive play/rewind hits these caliper points, replay will stop (independent of whether that is the start or end of the archive). This allows for a fine-grained level of focus around particular performance events.

kmchart

./usr/share/doc/kmchart/html/tutorial.html0000644000000000000000000005300511015153217017516 0ustar rootroot PCP Strip Charts Tutorial

Home · Views · Charts · Time Control

Tutorial

Main Window

On starting the PCP Chart (kmchart) tool with no command line arguments, the initial display shows a menu, toolbar, and a live time axis.

The vacant area above the time axis is the blank canvas for your charts – we'll get to this shortly, but take a moment to digest the main window.

The time axis along the bottom of the window scrolls with the current time, updated every second, by default (this is also called the sample interval).

To the left of the time axis is the time control status button.

The blue arrow signifies that (live) time is moving forward. Pressing the button once will show the Time Control tool, kmtime, pressing it a second time hides it.

The time controls allow you to modify various aspects of the flow of time in your charts, and clearly displays the current time position.

Views

The toolbar along the top of the window has a blue folder icon for Views. The File menu provides access to the same functionality via the "Open View" item.

Click on the blue Views folder, to bring up the “Open View” window.

There are several modes of playback available in archive mode:

Normal mode, where time updates are sent to the client at a continuous rate (usually not too different to the original live recording), as determined by the "Speed" wheel setting.
Step mode, where time is only advanced/retreated (by clicking on the Step button) one sample at a time.
Fast mode, where time is moved quickly in either a fast forward or fast rewind direction, and the visible charts are updated as quickly as possible.

The Speed setting can be changed by directly editing the text entry box, or more simply by selecting and rotating the wheel either left or right. Speed is only relevent in Normal mode.

kmchart

./usr/share/doc/kmchart/html/tutorial.html0000644000000000000000000005300511015153217017516 0ustar rootroot PCP Strip Charts Tutorial

Home · Views · Charts · Time Control

Tutorial

Main Window

On starting the PCP Chart (kmchart) tool with no command line arguments, the initial display shows a menu, toolbar, and a live time axis.

The vacant area above the time axis is the blank canvas for your charts – we'll get to this shortly, but take a moment to digest the main window.

The time axis along the bottom of the window scrolls with the current time, updated every second, by default (this is also called the sample interval).

To the left of the time axis is the time control status button.

The blue arrow signifies that (live) time is moving forward. Pressing the button once will show the Time Control tool, kmtime, pressing it a second time hides it.

The time controls allow you to modify various aspects of the flow of time in your charts, and clearly displays the current time position.

Views

The toolbar along the top of the window has a blue folder icon for Views. The File menu provides access to the same functionality via the "Open View" item.

Click on the blue Views folder, to bring up the “Open View” window.

There are several modes of playback available in archive mode:

Normal mode, where time updates are sent to the client at a continuous rate (usually not too different to the original live recording), as determined by the "Speed" wheel setting.
Step mode, where time is only advanced/retreated (by clicking on the Step button) one sample at a time.
Fast mode, where time is moved quickly in either a fast forward or fa