LabAnalyst has six menus, plus on-line instructions in the "Help" menu (OS 8 and above), "Special" menu (OS X) or the Apple menu (earlier operating systems).

FILE	EDIT	ANALYZE	VIEW	CHANNELS	SCRIPTS	HELP / SPECIAL
			Hide / Show markers  Scaling submenus Active channel only All channels Redraw Overlay Show comments Show multiple channels Show a single channel  Color display Colors and lines Plot as histogram Show all channel values  Window size submenu      Large plot area      Use full screen      Set window area   Significant digits submenu      4-8 digits

  HIDE MARKERS / SHOW MARKERS     Turn event markers display in the plot area off and on.  Markers are generated by key-presses (or automatically under certain conditions) in the LabHelper data acquisition program.  Sable Systems SSCF files may also contain markers.

  SCALING [ACTIVE CHANNEL]   This is available only in the 'FP' and 'X' versions.        It has a submenu with five items:

  HIGH RESOLUTION     Automatically finds the Y-range of the data and selects Y-axis scaling equal to the total data range plus or minus 5% of the range in either direction.

   SCALE TO INCLUDE ZERO        Selects a Y-range that includes zero and the entire Y-range of data, and sets the tic marks at whole numbers or simple fractions.  If the data are all positive or all negative, the scale will be set to include at least 110% of the data range, using zero as the minimum or maximum Y value, respectively.

• If data include both positive and negative values, this is equivalent to 'NORMAL SCALING'. 

   NORMAL SCALING        LabAnalyst's default scaling protocol.  Selects a Y-axis scaling factor that includes the entire Y-range of the data, with tic marks set at whole numbers or simple fractions.  If data include both positive and negative values, this is equal to 'SCALE TO ZERO'.  If data are all positive or all negative, 'NORMAL SCALING' may select a smaller scale factor (i.e., higher resolution).

  MANUAL SCALING...      Allows manual selection of minimum and maximum Y-values for the plot area.  This is useful to optimize scaling for plot regions of particular interest.  On may occasions, the automatic scaling options (NORMAL SCALING and SCALE TO ZERO) do not show areas of particular interest at sufficiently high resolution.

When the manual scaling window (shown at right) opens, it displays the current scaling values for the active channel.  You can modify them as desired.

  SET INTERACTIVELY...      Lets you use the mouse and cursor in the plot area to set the scaling limits, using the following small window: 

Click the 'Upper limit' or 'Lower limit' button, then move the cursor line to the desired spot and click the mouse once.  You can also expand a plot with a too-confining scale by clicking the 'Expand 2X' or 'Expand 3X' buttons.  When done, click the 'done' or 'cancel' buttons.  Clicking the plot area when the horizontal cursor line is not showing is the same as clicking the 'done' button.

When using manual or interactive scaling it's important to remember that the SAME scaling constraints will apply to all segments of the channel -- regardless of what data they contain.  Manual scaling is switched off (and Normal scaling is switched on) whenever a new file is loaded.

Note: When you perform a baseline correction on a manually-scaled channel (either 'regular' manual scaling or interactive scaling), the scaling mode is automatically reset to 'HIGH RESOLUTION' mode.  This is because the baseline operation changes the position of the data, so manually-set limits are frequently completely outside the data range after baseline correction.

  SCALING [ALL CHANNELS]       In the 'FP' and 'X' versions, this selection has a submenu with three items:

   HIGH RESOLUTION
  SCALE TO INCLUDE ZERO
   NORMAL SCALING   +N
These have the same action as described above, except that they reset the scaling defaults for all channels (not just the active channel).

   REDRAW            Redraws the plot area, which is useful if it has been messed up from previous operations, or if a new channel has been selected.  Any data block is retained when the plot is redrawn.

   OVERLAY...    +L          Allows you to draw other channels in the plot area in addition to the active channel.  Note that Overlay is not available in multi-channel display mode.

A channel selection window appears in the lower left (the button for the active channel is switched off).  Select any or all of the available channels (shown at left, above), then click the 'Selection OK' button.  A scaling mode window appears (at right, above).

Finally, you can select two additional options:

• Whether the overlay appears only on the present plot area, or whether all subsequent plot areas (different channels or different screenfulls) also show overlays.  To switch this option off, go to overlay selection again. 
• Whether the lines for overlain channels are drawn as dashes or as solids. 

After you click the 'selection OK' button, data about the selected channels are drawn in colors corresponding to the color code in the lower left window, and the overlay operation itself begins in the plot area.

• All channels are drawn in black in monochrome mode, which may make identification of different channels difficult. 

LabAnalyst FP only: An easy way to do a simple overlay (one channel only, no options for dashed lines or subsequent plotting) is to hold down the command key while picking the desired overlay channel from the CHANNELS menu.  This can be repeated as often as desired for additional channels. Alternately, you can do a simple overlay by holding down the 'option' key and selecting the desired channel from the main keyboard number keys (not the keypad).

  SHOW COMMENTS          Toggles display of the file's comments off or on.  If comments are not shown, the block window is larger and has more vertical resolution.

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  MULTIPLE CHANNELS...          Allows you to plot any combination of the channels in the file.  There are two 'modes' of channel display: Full Screen and Plot Area.

• In Full Screen mode (shown below), the data plots fill up the entire available screen area.  You can change between the 'entire file' and 'active screen' modes and shift between screens using the normal channel change buttons or the left and right arrow keys.  You can also send an image of the file to a printer or load new files, but most analyses and edit menu functions are not usable.  You need to click the close box to get back to the regular analysis screen. 
• In Plot Area mode, the channels are plotted within the normal plot area and you can use all the normal edit and analysis menu functions. 

In either case, a channel selection window allows you to pick any combination of the available channels.  If you click the 'non-standard plot height' button, a window will open to allow customization of the height of each channel:

The window for customized plotting contains a diagram of the printed page.  You select the relative height of each channel in sequence by moving the cursor on the diagram to the desired height, and then clicking the mouse ONCE.  The channels will be redrawn one by one as their heights are selected.  Note that there is a fixed amount of room on the screen, so that enlarging one channel requires shrinking one or more of the others.  Consequently, the computer reserves an amount of space necessary for drawing the remaining channels at the minimum possible height (and will not let you exceed that limit).  You must select plot heights for all the channels.  When done, you can accept the results, re-do the plot height selection, or revert to the normal setting (all channels drawn with equal heights).

When done, click the 'Plot heights OK' button, and the selected channels will be drawn.

Example of a full-screen multi-channel display, showing the trackline option deactivated.  Note the value readouts in the upper right corner of each channel's plot area.  These channels are plotted in normal scaling mode.

• NOTE:  if the file contains only one channel, the menu reads FULL SCREEN instead of MULTIPLE CHANNELS.

   SINGLE CHANNEL     Shifts back to single channel display.  Note that some operations (like exiting from a full-screen multi-channel display) automatically switch to single channel display.

  COLOR DISPLAY     If you have a machine that displays in color (or gray-scale), this option allows you to toggle the screen from color to monochrome.

• At startup, LabAnalyst checks to see if you have a monochrome display.  If you do, the program inactivates both this menu option and the COLORS AND LINES option.  If you have a color display the program defaults to color. 

COLORS AND LINES...  Use this option to select data line thicknesses and screen color combinations (the latter option is not accessible or relevant for monochrome displays).  In the example shown below, the user has selected to use the normal line thickness (1 pixel), and the result is shown in the sample plot area (note that only the data line is drawn in various thicknesses and only in the plot area; the block window, overlays, etc. are not affected).

Click the buttons for the various screen components and select colors from the Apple color wheel.  Your selections will affect both plot and block colors.  Block colors in the plot area are the inverse of the plot colors, and you can't directly control them.  However, you can set the block window color to your preference.  You can store your preferred colors for future use with the SAVE SETTINGS option in the FILE menu.

• The Overlay buttons on the right let you select different colors for each of up to 16 channels; they are shown against the current plot background color.
• The Histogram bars button allows selection of the bar colors of histograms, which are used in various analysis modes.
• NOTE:   Colors may change if you shift between 8-bit color depth (256 colors) and greater color depths (16- and 24-bit; 'thousands' or 'millions' of colors).

   PLOT AS HISTOGRAM   +H     Toggles between plotting data as line graphs (the LabAnalyst default) or as solid 'histograms', as seen in the following example:

This shows a multi-channel display within the plot area.  Three of six channels are shown, using the 'histogram' option.  Notice that the base of the histogram is zero, not the bottom of the plot area.  This means that if the data are all negative, the histogram will appear to be be anchored at the top of the plot area.  Some considerations for the histogram display option:

• Drawing a plot in histogram mode is appreciably slower than drawing it in line graph mode. 
• Only data in the plot area can be drawn as histograms.  The block window always draws in line graph mode. 
• If you use the overlay option, only the active channel (the one indicated in the pop-up menu in the upper right corner of the screen) can be shown as a histogram.  In many cases, use of the histogram option makes it easier to see how the other channels are related to the active channel. 
• Many operations (such as interactive spike removal) will temporarily switch to line graph mode if you have selected histogram plots. 
• Although it does work, histogram plotting is not recommended if you are sending screen images to a printer (it wastes a lot of ink or toner). 

  SHOW ALL CHANNEL VALUES...     Provides a continuous numeric readout of all data channels.  As for the data bar, values are updated only when the cursor is within the plot area.  You can either place the readout box with the cursor or use the default placement (directly under the value readout of the data bar).

   WINDOW SIZE        In the 'FP' and 'X' versions, this selection has a submenu with three items:

  LARGE PLOT AREA     This appears only if the screen size exceeds 640 by 480 pixels.  It allows you to use the maximum possible screen area for the data plot (the exact size available for the plot area window will be the number of vertical pixels less 275).  This is particularly useful if you are showing several channels simultaneously.  The disadvantage of this mode is that it shrinks the size of the block window considerably (at least on screens larger than 640 by 480).

  USE FULL SCREEN     This is available only if screen size exceeds 640 by 480 pixels; it sets the size of the LabAnalyst display to cover the entire screen area.

  SET WINDOW AREA...  (LabAnalyst FP and X only)     This is available only if screen size exceeds 640 by 480 pixels.  It lets you resize the program's main window by dragging an example window the the desired dimensions.  Click, hold, and drag the lower right corner.  When the size is right, click once within the example window to set the new dimensions.  The minimum area is 640 by 480 pixels.

   SIGNIFICANT DIGITS        'FP' and 'X' versions only; this selection has a submenu with 5 selections:

You can choose to show from four to eight significant digits when the program presents the results of analyses.  The default value is six significant digits, which is a reasonable approximation of the resolution and accuracy of most data.  Not all of the numbers shown in analysis windows conform to the user-set number of significant digits (for example, many mean values are shown with more significant digits).

These menu selections affect only the display of results.  They do not inflence the precision of data storage or of internal mathematical calculations.

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