org.eclipse.contribution.visualiser/doc/userguide/main.html

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<H1 style="text-align:center" align="center">Using the Visualiser</H1>

<a name="views">
<H2>Overview </H2></a>
<p>The Visualiser is an extensible plugin that can be used to visualize anything that can be
represented by bars and stripes.  It began as the Aspect Visualiser, which was a part of the popular AJDT
plugin. It was originally created to visualize how aspects were affecting classes in a project, 
but has since been extracted to become its own component.</p>
<p><img src="visualiser.png" alt="The two Visualiser Views"> </p>
<p>The Visualiser plugin has two views - the main Visualiser view, which displays
the bar drawing, and the Visualiser Menu, which displays the 'kinds' of stripes that
appear on the bars.  The Menu is used to activate and deactivate kinds, and to change
the colours used. Bars in the Visualiser are given a white background if contain any stripes,
otherwise they are dark grey.</p>

<a name="modes">
<H2>Visualization Modes</H2></a>
<p>The data that the bars represent is structured as groups and members, where each group
contains one or more members.  Groups cannot contain other groups.  In the AspectJ plugin, groups
represent packages and members represent classes within that package.  The Visualiser provides 
"Member View" where each bar represents a member, and "Group View" where each bar represensts a group.
The size of any group is the sum of the sizes of all its members, and it can be considered
to be a composition of all its members stacked on top of each other.  Member and Group View can 
therefore be considered to be two diferent views on the same set of data.</p>


<p>Member View:<br><br><img src="member_view.png" alt="Member View"> </p>
<p>Group View:<br><br><img src="group_view.png" alt="Member View"> </p>

<p>Providers can choose to give Member and Group view different names and different
icons.  For example, AJDT describes Member View as "Class View" and Group View as "Package View" and
gives them class and package icons accordingly.  Whichever provider you are using, the farthest right
button will be the Member View button, and the button just left of that will be the Group View
button.</p>

<a name="drawing">
<H2>Drawing Options</H2></a>
<p>As well as Member and Group views, the Visualiser provides a variety of means
of manipulating the bar drawing it produces.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Deselect kinds<br><br></p><p><img src="kinds.png"><br><br></p></li>
<li><p>Change the colours of kinds. (Click one of the buttons with a coloured square
on to bring up a colour selection dialog for that kind).<br><br></p><p><img src="colours.png"><br><br></p></li>
<li><p>Limit to affected bars only<br><br></p><p><img src="limit.png"><br><br></p></li>
<li><p>Zoom in<br><br></p><p><img src="zoom.png"><br><br></li>
<li><p>Fit to view, where the image is resized to fit the window or be the smallest it can 
after obeying certain minimums.<br><br></p>
	<p><img src="fit_to_view.png"><br><br></p></li>
</ul>

<p>The 'Drawing Options' tab of the Visualiser preference page allows the user to further customise the view with preferred column width and stripe height settings
and a selection of rendering styles. <br><br></p> 
<p><img src="preferences.png" alt="preferences page"><br><br></p></li>

<a name="quick">
<H2>Quick-Select Actions</H2></a>
<p>Several actions have been provided to enable quick selection and de-selection of kinds being shown.
This is particularly useful for large data sets.</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Select All / Select None<br><br></p>
	<p>Selects (or deselects) all of the kinds in the Visualiser Menu.<br><br></p><p><img src="select.png"><br><br></p></li>
<li><p>Only show..<br><br></p>
	<p>Right click on a bar, then click "Only show colors affecting this bar".  This will activate
	all the kinds in the menu that affect the selected bar, and de-activate all the others.<br><br></p>
	<p><img src="onlyshow.png"></p></li>
</ul>

<a name="providers">
<H2>Providers</H2></a>
<p>The Visualiser has a plug-in architecture where 'providers' register using the extension point
provided.  The Visualiser preferences page allows users to switch between providers.</p>
<p>To open the preference page click "Window" &gt; "Preferences", then select "Visualiser"
from the left hand menu.  Alternatively click "Preferences" from the drop-down menu in the
Visualiser view.<br><br></p>

<p><img src="preferences2.png"><br><br></p>

<p>The Visualiser comes with three built-in providers:
<ul>
<li>a simple file provider that reads bar and stripe infromation from two files</li>
<li>a resources and markers provider that responds to selections in the workbench and displays 
    files as bars, with associated markers as stripes,</li>
<li>a JDT search results provider that displays Java classes as bars and the results 
    of the most recent Java search as stripes.</li> 
</ul>
</p>
<p>To find out about writing your own provider for the Visualiser, see the 
"<a href="../extenderguide/main.html">Writing a plug-in for the Visualiser</a>" section
of the Visualiser help.</p>
<p style='margin-left:36.0pt;text-indent:-18.0pt;mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;
tab-stops:list 36.0pt'>&nbsp;</p>
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