The choices... dialogue

The choices dialogue has a number of sections, accessed via the Tabs at the top of the window, and a set of action buttons at the bottom of the window.

The actions available are:

Set

This will store the new settings, which will be used for all future operations. Note that graphs already displayed necessarily may not be changed, since the local settings for each graph display will override the choices settings.

Save

This will store the new settings, as in Set above, and will also save the settings to disc, so they will be used when GraphDraw is run in the future.

Cancel

Close the dialogue and ignore any changes made since it was opened.

Reload

Restore the settings to those pertaining when they were last saved.

Fonts tab

This tab allows a number of font details to be set.

For the data input window, you can change the font face, using the popup menu button to the right of the font name. To change the font face, click on the menu icon. A standard font menu will result, from which the new font is chosen. The text size (in pt) can be adjusted using the bump icons to the right of the displayed size.

For the graph display, you can choose which font GraphDraw will use for each of it's styles when labelling and annotating the graph. The font face can be changed using the font menu, and the text sizes (in pt) used for the various graph annotations can also be changed, as described above.

If any data input and graph windows are showing when these options are changed, the change will be reflected in all the open windows as soon as the Set or Save buttons are pressed.

Graph tab

This section contains general settings for the graph display.

Default size

This determines the size of the window used to display a graph. Current sizes available are

• 640 × 480
• 800 × 600
• 1024 × 768
• 1280 × 1024
• A4 landscape
• A4 portrait

Background colour

Pressing the menu button to the right of the field showing the colour used for the graph background will result in a standard colour picker dialogue being shown. A new colour can be chosen, or the background set to 'None'. In this case the colour block will show a 'crosshatch' pattern to indicate 'transparent'.

Lines tab

Graph line widths

In this dialogue it is possible to set the line widths used when plotting the graph. The widths for the graph axes, the fitted data line, and the grid lines, can be set independently, using the appropriate bump icons to the right of the width values.

Use thin lines on vdu

Thin lines, as understood by the draw module are not supported directly, since the use of such lines can cause problems with e.g. high resolution printers, when the 1 pixel wide line effectively becomes invisible.

When using line widths of a fraction of a pt, the VDU display can sometimes look a little uneven, particularly with lines at an angle to the horizontal/vertical. In some cases, lines can completely disappear. This is where the option Use thin lines on vdu comes in. If this is selected, then the screen display will use 1 pixel wide lines for all the lines on the graph, but when saving draw files and printing will revert to the actual line widths as set in this dialogue. If this is not set, then GraphDraw will make the assumption that lines of less than about 0.80 pt should be displayed on screen as 'thin' lines, and thicker lines will be displayed at their configured thickness. (Why 0.8 pt? There are 72 pt to the inch, and the vdu display is nominally 90 pixels to the inch. Thus 1 px is about 0.8 pt).

Curved line segments

Since GraphDraw uses a sequence of straight line segments to approximate a curve, this section is used to set the number of line segments the program will use when drawing the fitted curves (polynomial, parabola, spline). The actual number used for vdu display, draw files, printer, or MultiPlot files can be set independently. I have found over the years that 100 segments is more than adequate for the screen display. The more segments, the slower is the screen update, but the smoother the curve. For higher resolution printers, more segments are often necessary, although even here, 200-300 segments gives a reasonbly smooth curve for most purposes.

Axes tab

Axis pip type

You can set the pips to be inside, outside or straddle the axes. Make your selection from the popup menu button to the right of the display field.

Axis pip size

The length of the axis pips can be set in os units by means of the up/down bump arrows.

Boxed graph

This group of settings control whether a bounding box is put around the graph, and whether grid lines are placed on the graph.

Full box outline

When ticked, a box is drawn around the graph. If a box is chosen, then the other options become available.

With axis pips

When ticked, pips will be drawn on the box outline as well as on the axes.

X axis grid

When ticked, the x axis pips will be extended across the graph (vertically) between top and bottom of the box.

Y axis grid

When ticked, the y axis pips will be extended across the graph (horizontally) between the left and right of the box.

Dashed grid

When ticked, the grid lines (if present) will be drawn dotted. If unticked, a solid line will be drawn.

Axes through origin

The graph axes are normally drawn at the left and bottom of the graph. If either the x or y data (or both) has both positive and negative values, then if this is ticked, the graph axis wi be drawn through the zero point. If unticked then the axes will always be put at left/bottom even if there are positive and negative values.

See the graph layout options section for a fuller description and example images showing these settings.

Symbols tab

This tab allows the type of symbols used on the graph to be defined. The type, or shape, of the symbol, its size, and its colour can all be set. The type of symbol (e.g. square, circle) is chosen from the popup menu. The size (specified in OS units) can be set using the bump icons. The colour is chosen from a standard colour picker dialogue, accessed from the popup menu button.

The line width applies to symbols that are not filled shapes, but are drawn as lines, e.g. a cross or plus symbol. In this case the line width in pts used to draw the symbol can be set using the bump icons.

Printing tab

Print format

GraphDraw assumes that the printer uses A4 paper. Print format controls how GraphDraw arranges the print out. You are offered three options, accessed via the popup menu button.

A4 landscape

The printed graph will be formatted always to A4 landscape, whatever the format of the screen display.

A4 portrait

The printed graph will be formatted always to A4 portrait, whatever the format of the screen display.

Auto

With this setting, GraphDraw will attempt to print the graph in the format of the actual screen display, printing the graph in landscape or portrait mode as appropriate, and scaling down to fit the A4 size if necessary. Smaller sizes (e.g. 640 × 480) will be printed at a size determined by the setting Scale up small size graphs (see below).

Show printer margins on graph display

Most printers are not able to print to the edge of the paper. When the screen display is set to A4 portrait or landscape, GraphDraw will attempt to take account of the printer margins, and will not use the whole of the A4 sized display. If a printer driver is active, GraphDraw will read the configured printer margins from the printer driver. If there is no driver active, default values will be used until !Printers is loaded.

This option, when selected, will show the printer margins on the display in a mid grey colour.

Note that the printer margins are reread whenever the active printer is changed, so the graph margins will immediately reflect these changes.

Scale up small size graphs

If this option is unticked, any graph which is smaller than an A4 page will be printed without any scaling when the print format is set to Auto. If ticked, then small graphs (e.g. 640 × 480) will be scaled up to fit the A4 page when printed.

Other tab

Drag to existing edit window appends data

When you drag a GraphDraw data file to the iconbar icon, or double click on such a file, the data is loaded into a new edit window. This option controls what happens when a GraphDraw datafile is dragged and dropped on to an existing edit window. If this option is ticked, then the new data is added to that already present. If it is unticked, then the new data is loaded into a new edit window.

Additional note

Note that some of the above settings can be changed for individual graphs once they are being displayed (see the graph display options section for a fuller description and example images). Changes made in the Choices dialogue while one or more graph windows are already showing will not affect those windows, excluding font style changes. The graph options are inherited by a data set when that data set is first created or loaded, thus these changes will only affect new data sets.

The options that can be changed for individual graphs are

• Everything under the Graph tab
• The graph line widths under the Lines tab
• Everything under the Axes tab
• Everything under the Symbols tab