Tkgraph Control Panel - Dataset Tab

You will find that drawing a single thin black line for every dataset is not always the ideal method. Tkgraph lets you customize the appearance of the dataset in some standard ways. You can control the thickness of the dataset, the color, the style of dashes used, and the symbols drawn at each data point.

The internal representation of Datasets in Tkgraph is a little different than of XY Graphs or other Canvas items. For this reason, the Delete, Raise, Lower, and Show Current Values have been disabled. These buttons should be available in later versions of Tkgraph. Similarly, the selection buttons that you saw in the XY Graph tab have been replaced with a single menu from which you can select one dataset to modify.

Unfortunately, there is no easy way to determine which dataset corresponds to which value in the dataset selection menu. It is guaranteed that if you have, for example, 4 datasets in a graph, then they are represented by the values 1, 2, 3, and 4 in the dataset selection menu. The only way to further determine which value goes with each dataset is by selecting a dataset, modifying a property for the dataset, and watching which dataset in the graph changed. There are plans to improve this situation in the future.

There are two different ways to draw a dataset. The data can either be drawn as a connected line, or it can be drawn as a scatter plot. When a scatter plot is used, a symbol is drawn in the graph at each data point.

Let's try playing with our dataset now. Select the Line Color checkbox and enter blue for the color. Also set the Thickness of the line to 4 pixels. Make sure the graph containing the dataset is still selected. Only datasets in selected graphs will be modified. Also make sure that the first dataset is selected in the dataset selection menu in the Control Panel, since we have only loaded one file of data at this time. Now you can press the Apply button. You should see the dataset in the Canvas turn blue and become really thick.

Next let's play with a scatter plot. First we need to turn out line plot into a scatter plot. Use the Deselect all options to clear all of the checkboxes in the Control Panel. Now select the Data Style checkbox and enter scatter for its value. Hit Apply and watch the dataset turn into a group of small black circles.

You can now play around with the symbol properties to see how they affect the appearance of the dataset. Some commonly used symbols are:

We can continue on to another useful Canvas item: Labels. Press the Label tab now.


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