ElVis Improvements

Summer 2008

Eric Zatz

PPPL Summer Intern

Mentor – Eliot Feibush

August 11, 2008

Graphical User Interface

• Cursor now takes form of the current whiteboard tool being used.

Dashed Rectangle

PencilZoom

Graphical User Interface

• Fixed bug with Mac OS X where the ElVis buttons do not display properly.

Before After

No Buttons

Buttons

ElVis Markup Language

• ElVis used binary serialization to send graphs via Transp

• This caused graphs to unsuccessfully load in ElVis, so there was no data

• Replaced this with mechanism with new method of data transfer by using ElVis Markup Language (EML)

• EML is XML code that can be read in by ElVis to build graphs

• Significantly reduce version mis-matches.

Advantages of EML

• No more data loss or crashing

• Legible – humans can read it and know exactly what is happening

• Can be sent as a stream (i.e. Transp) or saved to a file

• Load EML from a URL for web access

• Can send multiple graph windows at once

• Allowed for integration with NSTX Web Tools

Loading/Saving of EML

• Now graphs can be saved on a local computer and reopened when ElVis is launched the next time through the File menu

Loading Saving

More Loading/Saving of EML

• Since graphs can have millions of data points, needed an efficient way to process all of the data.

• Originally, a graph with ~150,000 points would take about 3-4 hours to save.

• Now, the same graph saves in about 2 seconds• To do this, I used StringBuffers to append the data to

the EML file rather than simple String concatenations.• I added data to the StringBuffer in small pieces and

then “reset” the buffer by emptying it out again.• Saves time because computer does not need to keep

allocating memory in small amounts for each concatenation

Bug Fixes in EML

• 2D graphs not adding multiple datasets• Graphs not color coding datasets• Indexed graphs not animating• Inability to convert contour plots to surfaces• Missing Y-Axis labels for indexed graphs• Missing legend titles• Data tables not big enough to accommodate

longer data values

New Features for Transp Thanks to EML

• Can turn axis gridlines on or off using EML

Gridlines On Gridlines Off

More New Features

• Whiteboard annotations are now saved with EML and can be sent with the graph

• Short titles – shorter titles that replace normal graph title when graph gets too small

Normal Title Short Title

More New Features• Logarithmic vs Linear number styles for graph

axes• Set number of points to skip when showing

markers

Skip 2 points Skip 5 points

Data Tables

• Data Tables can now be sent using EML (didn’t work with binary serialization)

• All elements of data tables (columns, top-text, bottom-text) can have their own fonts, colors, and background colors

• EML allows for multiple top-text and bottom-text fields

• Can change all colors from the graph editor window

Data Table Fonts and Colors

• Can send any recognized font, font styles (plain, bold, italic, or bold italic), and font sizes via EML

• Can send background and font colors using rgb values, sRGB values, or by color name

• Table headers and rows with labels default to gray background and other cells default to white background.

• If the background color is manually set to a dark color and the font color is NOT set, ElVis will automatically make the font color white.

Top and Bottom Text Fields

Multiple top-text fields with

different settings

Multiple bottom-text fields with

different settings

Data Table Columns

Column with row labels

Column with normal data

Columns with manually set

colors

Data Tables and the Graph Editor• Users can change the background and font

colors of data tables using the graph editor’s “Data Table” tab.

Left: Set whether to change the background or font colorRight: Select column to modify

Non-EML Data Table Features

• Can now print data tables to postscript or pdf files

• However, ElVis uses third party classes to print graphs so data tables had to fit on one page

• New solution: Allow printing of data tables to html file so that data tables can display in any browser for any length data table

More Data Table Features

Data Table Printed as HTML

More Data Table Features

• The +T, -T, and Reset Labels buttons in ElVis now control data table font size

• +T makes font bigger

• -T makes font smaller

• Reset Labels resets table fonts to original state

Conclusion

• New GUI features

• EML for data transfer replaces binary serialization

• New data table features