From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (qmail 17051 invoked by alias); 19 Nov 2009 22:21:40 -0000 Received: (qmail 17038 invoked by uid 22791); 19 Nov 2009 22:21:39 -0000 X-SWARE-Spam-Status: No, hits=-2.4 required=5.0 tests=AWL,BAYES_00,SPF_HELO_PASS,SPF_PASS X-Spam-Check-By: sourceware.org Received: from mx1.redhat.com (HELO mx1.redhat.com) (209.132.183.28) by sourceware.org (qpsmtpd/0.43rc1) with ESMTP; Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:20:34 +0000 Received: from int-mx04.intmail.prod.int.phx2.redhat.com (int-mx04.intmail.prod.int.phx2.redhat.com [10.5.11.17]) by mx1.redhat.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id nAJMKXc1004109 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK) for ; Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:20:33 -0500 Received: from localhost.localdomain (dst61.hsv.redhat.com [10.15.1.185]) by int-mx04.intmail.prod.int.phx2.redhat.com (8.13.8/8.13.8) with ESMTP id nAJMKWMp015759 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Thu, 19 Nov 2009 17:20:32 -0500 Message-ID: <4B05C4B1.1070508@redhat.com> Date: Thu, 19 Nov 2009 22:21:00 -0000 From: David Smith User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux x86_64; en-US; rv:1.9.1.4pre) Gecko/20091014 Fedora/3.0-2.8.b4.fc11 Lightning/1.0pre Thunderbird/3.0b4 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Tim Moore , Systemtap List Subject: stapgraph thoughts Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-IsSubscribed: yes Mailing-List: contact systemtap-help@sourceware.org; run by ezmlm Precedence: bulk List-Id: List-Subscribe: List-Post: List-Help: , Sender: systemtap-owner@sourceware.org X-SW-Source: 2009-q4/txt/msg00601.txt.bz2 Tim, Here are a few stapgraph thoughts I've had today while playing around with it. - On my system anyway, the stapgraph window always comes up needing to be resized larger to actually see the entire graph. Would it be possible to have it come up at the correct size? - Related to the last point, although you can resize the stapgraph window, it doesn't really change the graph's dimensions. Perhaps the window could be made non-resizeable? - According to the stapgraph manpage, you can do "%Title: title for the whole graph". Is this correct? Your grapher.stp example uses "dataset %Title: title for the whole graph". If you have to specify a data set here, why? If I'm understanding this correctly, this isn't a title for the data set, but for the graph itself. Note that the same thing may hold true for '%XAxisTitle', '%YAxisTitle', and '%YMax'. I haven't used those yet, but the grapher.stp example uses a data set name there also. Also note that the 'dataset' name in front of '%Title:' must be a valid data set name, it can't just be dummy text. I worked around this by defining a fake data set just to use with %Title. - Another 'title' thought. Instead of overlaying the title on top of the graph itself (which can obscure the graph), either reserve it a space at the top or put it below the X axis on the graph. - Here's something related to the last one. The timestamps are also displayed on top of the X axis, which tends to obscure low data values. Could you put the timestamps under the X axis? (Admittedly that could obscure low negative data values, but I think that's a smaller problem.) - With lots of data sets being graphed concurrently, it is easy to get confused on what the graph actually means. If you don't know that this particular shade of red means X and that particular shade of blue means Y, you can't see it from the graph itself. Perhaps you could draw a legend of some sort that maps data set names back to their associated colors? For bonus points: if the mouse hovers over a data point, a bubble could pop up that displayed the data set name and data value at that point. -- David Smith dsmith@redhat.com Red Hat http://www.redhat.com 256.217.0141 (direct) 256.837.0057 (fax)