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 LoadingSaving

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 OnGridlines 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 pointsSkip 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 color Right: 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