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VIEW menu
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SHOW MARKERS / HIDE MARKERS Toggles the display of markers in the plot area (if the screen is large enough, there is button for this in the upper right corner of the plot area). INSERT MARKER(S) Lets you insert additional markers into a file (beyond those entered when the data were acquired in LabHelper). A window opens asking you to pick the letter of the new marker. Having done that, you move the cursor to the plot area and click on the location where you want to put the new marker.
The "»" and "<<" buttons are for the standard interpolation markers; "»" indicates the start of a segment of interpolated data and "<<" marks the end of the segment. These may be used to avoid including interpolated data in many analysis operations. Interpolation markers are (optionally) set automatically by the 'REMOVE REFERENCES' and 'SPIKE REMOVAL' procedures in the EDIT menu, but you may occasionally need to insert them manually.
When done (or when you want to change the marker letter), go back to the 'Insert new marker' window.
REMOVE MARKERS IN BLOCK Eliminates all markers from within a selected block. EXPORT MARKERS Makes a .csv text file contining all of the file's markers, with the associated sample number, elapsed time, and real time. Standard marker characters (R, S, ¶, », «) are labeled with their associated event type (e.g., begin and end reference, begin and end interpolation, etc.). SHOW REAL-TIME NOTES If the data file contains any real-time notes (Warthog binary or Sable ExpeData files only), this will output them to a text file.
SHOW GRID LINES Toggles the display of horizontal grid lines in the plot area.
SHOW ZERO LINES Toggles the display of a horizontal line showing the value of zero in the plot area (if the data include zero).
SHOW SCREEN SEGMENTS Toggles the display of vertical lines indicating 'screenwidths' (segments of the data that each contain a number of samples equal to the number of horizontal pixels in the plot area). These lines only appear when in 'entire file' display mode and the file contains more samples that the number of horizontal pixels in the plot area. You can shift between screen segments with the 'slider' at the bottom of the plot, or with the left and right arrow keys.
SHOW TIME SEGMENTS Toggles the display of vertical lines showing the time of day in hours.
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This submenu has five items:
HIGH RESOLUTION Automatically finds the Y-range of the data and selects Y-axis scaling equal to the total range plus 5% in either direction. SCALE TO INCLUDE ZERO Selects a 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.
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 this 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. When you perform a baseline correction on a manually-scaled channel (either 'regular' manual scaling or interactive scaling), scaling 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.
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).
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, then click the'custom' or 'Done' button.
If you clicked the 'custom button, you can select two additional options (if you clicked 'done', the program defaults to dashed lines and overlay on all subsequent plots).
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.
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 pop-up menu in the upper right corner of the plot area. 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 in a small window. If you click on this window, another window opens to allow editing of the comments. Comments can be essentially unlimited in length (32 K of characters), but you'll only see the top few lines in the comments window. Show block instructions Toggles display of instructions for selecting blocks and switching screen views (normally shown in the lower right of the display, but it can be removed with this command if it gets annoying).
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 multi-channel display with 4 channels out of 6 shown. These channels are plotted in normal scaling mode.
Some considerations:
User preferences are saved for automatic loading a program launch when you click the 'Save These Settings' button.
Note 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 be anchored at the top of the plot area. Some considerations for histogram display:
You can choose to show from four to eight significant digits when the program presents the results of analyses. The default value is six, 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 digits).
The significant figures setting affects only the display of results. It does not influence the precision of data storage or of internal mathematical calculations.
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