NAME¶
quickplot — fast interactive 2D plotter and data viewer
SYNOPSIS¶
quickplot [
OPTIONS] [
file1] [
OPTIONS] [
file2]
DESCRIPTION¶
quickplot is more like an interactive data browser than an interactive
picture editor. The difference between this 2D plotter and most 2D plotters is
that the primary purpose of Quickplot is to help you quickly interact with
your data. Of secondary importance is to make a pretty static picture of your
data. Features that distinguish Quickplot include: one click zooming, any
number of plots with different scales displayed at one time, value picking for
any number of plots with different scales displayed at one time, and reading
data from standard input. These features become indispensable when you're
looking at data sets with 10,000 to 1,000,000 and more data points. You can't
look at a 2D plot with 100,000 points unless you can quickly zoom. If you need
to look at hundreds of files each with 100,000 points, the command line
options in Quickplot may save your sanity.
This manual page was written for the
Debian distribution because the
original program does not have a manual page. Instead, it comes with
documentation in html format that can obtained by running the program and
pulling down the Help Menu. The html files can be found at
/usr/share/doc/quickplot/html/
OPTIONS¶
These programs follow the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options
starting with two dashes (`-'). A summary of options is included below.
- -a --about
- Display some information about Quickplot
- -c RGB --canvas-color RGB
- start quickplot with the graph background (canvas) color
RGB. Examples: --canvas-color #FF0000 or --canvas-color "red"
would make it red
- -d --different-scales
- load plots on the same graph with different scales. By
default Quickplot will load plots on the same graph with the same scale if
the span of x,y values in all the plots are within an order of magnitude
of each other
- -geometry GEOMETRY --geometry GEOMETRY
- create the initial window with the given geometry GEOMETRY,
see man page X(1) for the GEOMETRY format. Example: quickplot
--geometry=1000x300-0+30
- -C RGB --grid-color RGB
- RGB may be in one of these formats:
- •
- #RGB (each of R, G and B is a single hex digit)
- •
- #RRGGBB
- •
- #RRRGGGBBB
- •
- #RRRRGGGGBBBB
- •
- A name from the X color database, which may be in
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt. Example colors are "steelblue" and
"gainsboro".
- -g SIZE --grid-line-width SIZE
- start quickplot using plot grid width SIZE in pixels
- -h --help
- Show summary of options.
- -b CHAR --label-separator CHAR
- when reading labels from the last file in the argument list
before this option flag use CHAR as the label (single character)
separator. The default label separator is ' ' (space). If this file is not
an ASCII text file this will be ignored. See option: --labels or -L.
- -L --labels
- read labels from the first line not skipped of the last
file in the augment list before this option flag. If this file is not an
ASCII text file this will be ignored.
- -I SIZE --line-width SIZE
- start quickplot using plot line width SIZE in pixels
- -l [L_OPTIONS] --linear-field [L_OPTIONS]
- make a field that is a uniformly changing linear sequence
of values, like for example time. The number of values will be gotten from
the previous file's values loaded. The field generated will be added as
the first field of the previous file. For sound files this option is
ignored.
-
- L_OPTIONS
-
- The L_OPTIONS only have an effect after the --linear-field
(or -l) option and they act on the field made from that argument. The
L_OPTIONS are:
- •
- --start VALUE or -r VALUE set the first value in the
sequence to VALUE. The default first value will be zero.
- •
- --step SIZE or -t SIZE set the sequence step size to SIZE.
The default is 1.
- -B --no-buttons
- start quickplot with no button bar
- --no-default-plots
- by default when no --plot or -p options are given Quickplot
will make some plots with the files loaded at start up. This option will
cause Quickplot not to make these default plots. When files are loaded
using the GUI defaults plot will not be made if this is set.
- -G --no-grid
- start quickplot with out drawing graph grid lines, by
default, in the graphs
- --no-gui
- start quickplot with out showing any of the standard GUI's
(graphical user interfaces). This is the same as uses the options
--no-buttons --no-menubar --no-statusbar and --no-tabs.
- -i --no-lines
- start quickplot to plot without drawing lines in the graphs
by default
- -M --no-menubar
- start quickplot with no menubar
- -N --no-pipe
- don't read data in from standard input
- -o --no-points
- start quickplot to plot without drawing points in the
graphs by default
- --no-statusbar
- start Quickplot with no status bar displayed. The Quickplot
status bar is a thin widget at the bottom of the main Quickplot window
which displays pointer x, y graph values and mode information.
- --no-tabs
- start Quickplot with no graph tabs displayed. Quickplot
uses a notebook like widget to let you select and view multiple
graphs.
- -n NUM --number-of-plots NUM
- set the possible initial number of plots to NUM. The
default possible initial number of plots is 12.
- -P --pipe
- read in data from standard input. By default Quickplot
looks for data from standard input and stops looking if no data is found
in some short amount of time. This option will cause Quickplot to wait for
standard input indefinitely.
- -p LIST --plot LIST
- plot the following list of fields, LIST, at startup.
example: --plot "0 1 3 4" will plot field 1 VS field 0 and field
4 VS field 3. DataFields are numbered, starting at 0, in the order that
they are read in from a file or created, as in the case of option
--linear-field. A separate Graph Tab will be created for each --plot (or
-p) option given.
- -O SIZE --point-size
- SIZE" 10 start quickplot using plot point
size SIZE in pixels
- --print-about
- prints the About HTML document to standard output and then
exits
- --print-help
- prints the Help HTML document to standard output and then
exits
- -s --same-scale
- plot all start-up plots on the same scale
- --silent
- don't spew even on error. The --silent option will override
the effect of the --verbose option.
- -S NUM --skip-lines NUM
- skip the first NUM lines in the previous file read. The
previous file in the argument list should be an ASCII text file.
- -v --verbose
- spew more to standard output
- -V --version
- Show version of program.
- --with-libsndfile
- if quickplot is linked with the libsndfile --library, print
the version of the libsndfile library that quickplot is linked with, and
exit returning status 0 if quickplot is linked with the libsndfile library
and 1 if quickplot is not linked with the libsndfile library
KEYBINDINGS¶
Quickplot has GUIs for all of the following immutable keyboard short-cuts:
- •
- a show information about Quickplot using a web
browser
- •
- b toggles the visibility of the button bar
- •
- c copies the current focused main window frame
- •
- d delete the main window. This will not close the
last main window.
- •
- f makes a new main window frame
- •
- g show/hide the graph configuration widget
- •
- h show help using a web browser
- •
- i save a PNG image of the graph
- •
- m show/hide the menu bar
- •
- n make a new graph
- •
- o open a data file
- •
- p show/hide the plot lister widget
- •
- q quit
- •
- s toggles the visibility of the status bar
- •
- t toggles the visibility of the graph tabs
- •
- esc close the current focused window. This will not
close the last main window.
AUTHOR¶
Quickplot is written by Lance Arsenault.
This manual page was written by Gopal Narayanan (gopal@debian.org) for the
Debian system (but may be used by others). Permission is granted to
copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU
General Public License, Version 2 any later version published by the Free
Software Foundation.
On Debian systems, the complete text of the GNU General Public License can be
found in /usr/share/common-licenses/GPL.