____ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ___ ____ ___ ___ ___  / /__//_ /__ / //_ //__ / //_ / / / //_ //__//_   / / //__ ___//__//__/___//__// / /_/_// // \/__  ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - FOR ABO'S CONTACT US AT: BP:28 1170 WATERMAEL-BOITSFORT 1 BELGIUM!!... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ - DON'T SEND ANY DISKS - ------------------------------------------------------------------------------  THE LEGENDARY >> SUBSOFTWARE << IN 87/88/89/90/91!!...  ------------------------------------------------------ MULTIPLOT XLNc These programs are available for free* distribution. All rights to the source code, programs and text belong to, and copyrights are held by, Alan Baxter and Tim Mooney. DISTRIBUTION CONDITIONS SPECIFICLY EXCLUDE REDISTRIBUTION FOR PROFIT. July 1990 Walter & Eliza Hall Institute, c/o PostOffice, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville 3053. VICTORIA This is the third version of Multiplot XLN. It is expected to receive world distribution via the Fish Freely Distribuatable Software Collection. If you notice any repeatable bugs or have any suggestions for improvement of enhancement, please send them to me at the address below. CHANGES SINCE JUNE 1990 BETA Bug fix: New legends no longer overwrite each other. Bug fix: All requesters can be removed by hitting the return or escape keys. Bug fix: Point plots with a point size of zero no longer invoke the master. Bug fix: Deleting a legend by double clicking on it and manually erasing text no longer summons the great one. Bug fix: Step plots now work properly with data sets larger than 31 pairs. Bug fix: The Logarithmic fit has been renamed Exponential fit. Bug fix: The legend for an exponential fit had the logarithm of the prefactor. New feature: The Data Selection Window now has a button to clear the data file name if the program is to be invoked without data. It is now possible to transfer data to Multiplot entirely via the clipboard. CHANGES SINCE LAST VERSION Bug fix: The Cross Hair used to appear at the top left of the screen after redrawing the plot or zooming. Bug fix: The colour of the grid or tic marks was reset to light blue after redrawing the plot or zooming. Bug fix: The screen opening routines have been corrected to cope with those terrible scrolling workbenches some people like. Bug fix: The pointer did not change to the Zzz balloon when printing. Bug fix: Text size handling has been fixed. Code has been added in in preparation for the AmigaOS 2.0 font selecter gadget. Bug fix: The ability to handle large values has been improved. Now limited only by the address size of a double (I hope) ie: +/-10e-307 to +/-10e+307. Data files and clips may contain values in scientific notation. New feature: Multiplot can open a screen of 2,4,8 or 16 colours depending on available memory and user requirements. The number of colours available may be set by changing the BITPLANES value in info on the workbench, or by including the -b# option from the command line. New feature: Multiplot can now run on a 1/2 Mb machine. New feature: Clipping at axis boundaries has been added. New feature: The ability to save a plot has been added. The file format is flat ascii similar to the input file, with extra information stored in lines starting with the reserved keyword *AUTOSCRIPT*. (*AUTOSCRIPT* is a trademark of BioSoft Pty Ltd.) New feature: Support for line types has been added. New feature: The ability to delete a data set has been added. This is achieved by pushing the kill button on the CUSTOM PLOT window which may be called by double clicking on any point in the data set to be deleted, selecting the plot and then choosing the Delete option from the EDIT menu, or selecting the plot and then pressing the DELETE key on the keyboard. New feature: The ability to undelete deleted text or data sets has been added. New feature: Clipboard support has been added. Data sets and text may be cut and pasted between plots; data can be imported and exported via the clipboard. New feature: The maximum limit of 255 points per data set has been lifted. As far as I know, the number of data points per data set is limited by memory alone. New feature: Axis labels and a title can be edited or created from within the program. New feature: A legend may be created for the plot by adding the line "*LEGEND* DataSetName" to the top of the data for each data set. The legend will appear in the right margin, but may be dragged to any other location. The right margin may be eliminated by selecting the RightMargin option from the OPTIONS menu. Legends may be created from within the program by selecting a data set and choosing Add Text from the EDIT menu. New feature: Legend text may be edited by double clicking on it, moved by click/dragging and deleted by selecting it and either choosing the Delete option from the EDIT menu, or pressing the DELETE key on the keyboard. New feature: Minimum and maximum X and Y axis values can be requested. Plotting code is completely reversible and if the minimum and maximum axis values are reversed the plot will be redrawn upsidedown and back to front. New feature: The type of axes can be selected from the OPTIONS menu on the PLOT window. New feature: New plot type: Step graphs. Step graphs are useful for displaying survival curves and other sorts of data that are obtained after descrete time intervals. New feature: The PLOT window now has a menu option to remove both X and Y axis locks. New feature: It is now possible to toggle the error bars on and off from within the PLOT window. New feature: The Delete and Escape keys on the keyboard are now supported. New feature: Line fitting has been added. Currently linear and exponential fits are supported. The line fit is created as a new data set with its formula in the legend. New feature: Data smoothing has been added. The smoothed line is created as a new data set. New feature: Abitrary text placement has been added. Text may be edited by double clicking on it, moved by select/dragging, and deleted by selecting it and either choosing the Delete option from the EDIT menu or pressing the DELETE button on the keyboard. Style change: All boxes requesting numerical input now have flanking arrows to enable response with the mouse. Style change: The "Define Plot" window has been removed. Instead a default plot is drawn which can be edited by selecting the object to be altered by double clicking the mouse. This now conforms with the "select-action" standard of interfaces. Style change: Plots or data sets may be group selected by clicking on one, and holding down the shift key while clicking on other items to be group selected. Note only data sets OR text blocks may be selected together. Style change: The arrangement of the menu items on the PLOT window has been altered to provide a better clustering of actions. The Edit menu has been renamed ACTIONS and the Commodore standard Edit menu has been added providing clipboard support. Style change: The imagery for the STOP button has been altered to conform to the internationally accepted symbol. Other changes: Plot2Draw has been altered to handle line types, and has been recoded to compensate for a bug in Pagestream which prevented direct importation into Pagestream sometimes. Other changes: The HPGL output has been altered so that connecting lines are drawn continually. This saves on plotter pens, and speeds the PLT: output considerably. Other changes: Memory usage has been improved and memory is now alocated in a more conservative manner. HISTORY Multiplot was originally written by Tim Mooney as a plotting utility for use with mCAD, his freeware CAD program. It supported a flexible input textfile format, many plotting options, and HPGL plotter output. It was not an intuitive program, and its full power was difficult to realize. It was also very limited in output formats and had no support for printers. Some of these problems were addressed in PLOT, an intuition interface which created an environment from which Multiplot and a collection on conversion files could be called. However the major problem of a non-intuitive way of selecting plotting options remained (the "How to Plot" window), and it was not possible to print output from within the program. Multiplot XLN resolves these problems. DISTRIBUTION CONDITIONS Multiplot is not in the public domain. It is neither freeware, shareware nor commercial. It may be freely distributed, but not included in a commercial package, compilation collection, or sold, traded, leased or hired in any form or on any media without express consent of both authors. It is periodically released to Mr Fred Fish, who is licensed to distribute it in any form he sees fit providing the distribution package contains documentation, source and examples. This package may then be compressed and posted on any non-profit electronic distribution service. Specifically, inclusion of Multiplot on commercial electronic information services or in software compilation collections which are sold for profit is forbidden and breeches will be pursued with a tenacity rarely seen. All rights to the source code and programs are reserved. Modifications may be made to the source code for personal use to suit local requirements, but should not be widely distributed. We would very much like to see such modifications to consider inclusion in the generally distributed version. The inclusion of the PLT: device with Multiplot in no way implies any change in, or affects the distribution conditions of that package. Please read the documentation provided with PLT: for further information. SUMMARY Multiplot XLN is a fully intuitive data plotting program. It plots data points as (x,y) coordinates with or without error bars. It can plot an unlimited number of sets of any number of data points using colour, line type, point shape and point size to represent the diferent sets. A set may be joined by a line or plotted as discrete points. Data may be scatter plotted, or shown as a step graph. The input file for multiplot is a simple textfile and my be created in the NotePad or saved from any spreadsheet. Output may be in any of the following formats: IntroCAD, Draw, mCAD, IFF, HPGL. The graph can be printed to any workbench printer by transparent use of the PLT: device. REQUIREMENTS Workbench 1.3 (or higher) containing: Maths libraries The C: directory must contain the files c:run, c:failat and c:mount. The PLT: device consisting of: Plt-handler in the l: directory The mountlist entry for plt added to the devs:mountlist Assignment of the PLTDATA: directory containing PLT fonts. At least 1/2 Mb RAM. The files Multiplot, txt_2_icad and plot2draw must be kept together in the same directory. Text on screen currently uses Courier font sizes 14 and 24 point. If these fonts are absent, the default font will be used. INPUT FILE FORMAT Multiplot accepts a simple ASCII file for input of data. This file may be written on any simple editor, including the NotePad, or may be generated as a textfile from a spreadsheet. Multiplot does not choke on the linefeed/carriage-return of IBM style spreadsheets. The data must consist of columns of numbers and need not contain text. Text heading the file will be ignored and may be used for an explanatory note. Lines beginning with the text below are of special significance: *TITLE* Text will be used for a title (optional). *XLABEL* Text will be used for a label on X axis (optional). *YLABEL* Text will be used for a label on Y axis (optional). *LEGEND* The text will be used as a label for the following data set (optional). *SCALFACT* The numbers following will be multiplied to data in the respective columns (optional). *AUTOSCRIPT* is a reserved keyword that indicates the file has been written by Multiplot. It should not be used in import files. (*AUTOSCRIPT* is a trademark of BioSoft Pty Ltd.) *EXTRATEXT* is a reserved keyword that indicates that arbitrary text and its placement has been written by Multiplot. It should not be used in import files. Note that *LEGEND* and *SCALEFACT* can be used repeatedly through the data file. Blank lines or lines of text interrupting the columns of numbers are interpreted as separating sets of data, and each set will be plotted individually in, for example, a different colour or point size. See "plotme.dat" or "eric.dat" for examples of input file format. STARTING OUT From the CLI: multiplot [-[O][B#]] [filename] Type 'multiplot' with or without the filename of the input data file. If a '?' is used as an argument, a simple description of usage is given. The '-O' option will prevent an overscan screen being opened. This option will have no effect if you are not using an overdimensional workbench. The B option will set the number of bitplanes for the screen. The # value must immediately follow the B and may be one of 1->4. The number of bitplanes affects the number of on-screen colours as follows: 1 bitplane ---> 2 colours 2 bitplanes ---> 4 colours 3 bitplanes ---> 8 colours 4 bitplanes ---> 16 colours For example, the following are valid invocations of Multiplot: Multiplot -OB1 plotme.dat (Autoloads named file into a 2 colour screen with no overscan) Multiplot -B2 plotme.dat (Autoloads named file into a 4 colour screen with overscan if Workbench is overscanned ) Multiplot -B3O plotme.dat (Autoloads named file into a 8 colour screen with no overscan) Multiplot -B4 (Starts Multiplot with file requester and a 16 colour screen with overscan if Workbench is overscanned) Multiplot (Starts Multiplot with file requester and a 16 colour screen with overscan if Workbench is overscanned) Multiplot maust be started either from within its own directory, or by including the file path from the current directory. It cannot be invoked by adding it to a default command path like the C: directory. This limitation may be overcome by the use of the alias command. eg: alias Multiplot "dh0:/Multiplot -O" From the Workbench: Double click on the Multiplot icon OR Edit your input file in a simple editor (NotePad will do fine), and save with an icon. You can then change the file's default tool (INFO from the left hand Workbench menu) to Multiplot:Multiplot or whatever the file path is. Multiplot will then be automatically invoked when the file is double clicked. An alternative to this is to not change the file's default tool, but to click on the file to highlight it hold the shift key down, and then double click on the Multiplot icon. OVERSCAN SCREENS If you are using an overscan work bench (via MoreRows or some other trickery) Multiplot will attempt to open a screen the same size as your workbench screen. This enables you to make the most of the resolution of you monitor. It is not usually possible to open a 16 colour interlace high resolution screen with overscan unless you have 1Mb chip ram. The maximum overscan available is 705 x 562 on a PAL machine or 705 x 450 on an NTSC machine. If the WorkBench overscan exceeds these values a default size screen is opened. It is important to note that on PAL machines, some saved preferences result in a screen that requires too much bandwidth to be supported by a standard Amiga. In this event a shorter NTSC sized screen is opened by Amiga DOS, but Multiplot will continue to access the screen in the belief it has a PAL sized screen. Providing the dimensions of the workbench screen are less that those above and the machine has 1 meg chip ram, this may be corrected by quitting the program, and shifting the screen to the left in the screen location setter in the preferences program. The default to overscan can be prevented in three ways: 1) Use a standard Workbench. 2) If starting from the CLI, use the -O option as the first argument. 3) If starting from the workbench, set the TOOLTYPES string in the info requester for the Multiplot icon to "OVERSCAN=OFF" (without the quotes). If the system has little chip ram or it is greatly fragmented, Multiplot may be unable to open a screen at all. In this case, you will see an "Insufficient Memory" warning and the program will quit. Close extra windows, quit unneeded programs, and try again. If chip ram is badly fragmented, you will need to reboot. MEMORY CONSERVATION Multiplot can be used successfully on Amigas with 1/2 Mb RAM or 1/2 Mb chip ram, if care is taken to conserve memory. The following measures should be used either separately or together, depending on requirements: 1) Assign T: to a disk, not RAM. Multiplot uses the T: directory to write temporary files. 2) Assign CLIPS: to a disk, not RAM. Multiplot uses the CLIPS: directory to store data pasted to the clipboard. 3) Do not have the fonts Courier.14 and Courier.24 in the FONTS: directory. If they are absent, Multiplot will use the default Topaz.9 font. 4) If starting from the CLI, use the -O option as the first argument. This will prevent Multiplot opening an overscanned screen. 5) If starting from the workbench, set the TOOLTYPES string in the info requester for the Multiplot icon to "OVERSCAN=OFF" (without the quotes). This will prevent Multiplot opening an overscanned screen. 6) If starting from the CLI, use the -B option to reduce the number of bitplanes used for Multiplot's screen. This is important for machines with 1/2 Mb Chip RAM. 7) If starting from the workbench, set the TOOLTYPES string in the info requester for the Multiplot icon to "BITPLANES=#" (without the quotes). If # is less than 4, Multiplot will open a screen with fewer colours. This is important for machines with 1/2 Mb Chip RAM. If Multiplot is run on a PAL Amiga with no overscan and a 1 bitplane (2 colour) screen, it uses 208 Kbytes before loading data, and 216 Kbytes after loading a moderately large data file. PHILOSOPHY OF THE USER INTERFACE Multiplot fully supports the Amiga's graphical user interface. Below are listed a few of the important features of this interface that relate to the use of Multiplot. 1) An item is a pictorial representation of something on the screen. 2) An item may be selected by moving the mouse pointer over it and clicking the left mouse button. This action will highlight, change or place a box around the item to indicate that it has been selected. If the item is a button ("gadget"), selecting it may invoke some specific action. If this is the case, the picture on the item should give some idea of what the action is. Multiplot makes extensive use of buttons that indicate the status of a selection. For example, the line type bauuton has as its picture the type of line currently in use. Selecting this button will change the picture and the line type to another choice. Note that the points of a data set are items, but the joining lines are not; thus a data set can only be selected by clicking on one of its points. Multiple items can be selected together by selecting one, pressing and holding down the shift key, and selecting the rest. This is called "group selection". 3) Special activity relating to an item may be started by placing the pointer over it and clicking the left mouse button twice in rapid succession ("double clicking"). In Multiplot, this action will usually open a special window allowing you to edit characteristics of the selected item. 4) Some items are movable. An item my be moved by placing the pointer over it and pressing and holding down the left mouse button while moving the pointer to the new location. This is called select-dragging. Only text may be moved in Multiplot. Multiple items can be select- dragged by group selecting them first. 5) Some program options are available in menus, which are selected by placing the pointer over the title bar at the top of the screen and pressing and holding down the right mouse button while moving the over the selections that drop down from the title bar. A selection is made by releasing the right mouse button over a selection, or by clicking the left mouse button. Multiple selections can be made by clicking the left mouse button over each of the desired options before releasing the right mouse button. 6) The delete key will remove an item that has been selected. The item may be retrieved by selecting Undelete from the EDIT menu. Only text and data sets may be deleted from Multiplot. 7) The escape key will quit the program, or if a special window is open, will quit the window without changes. 8) The return key will allow continuation of work, will proceed to the next selection, or will accept changes and implement them. THE DATA SELECTION WINDOW After being started, Multiplot tries to work out whether it is on a PAL or NTSC machine, and opens a screen of the appropriate size. If an overscan workbench is used, a screen as large as possible up to the size of the workbench screen will be opened. The screen's palette is read from the file "MPlot.def" which should be in either the same directory as Multiplot or the s: directory. If it is not found, you will be informed and a screen the colour of vomit will be opened. This should encourage you to save a new default palette! The next thing you may see is the DATA SELECTION WINDOW. If you started Multiplot by telling it what file you wanted to plot, the file's name will be in a little box. If Multiplot is invoked without telling it what file you want, the default file name will appear in the box. The PATH button will call up a file requester to help with browsing directory trees looking for wanted data files. Beneath the file selection box are three other boxes to indicate what column the X, Y and Error values are in. A '0' indicates values are absent. For example if the Error box has a '0', no error bars will be plotted. If the X box has a '0', the X values will be assumed to start at 0 and increase by 1 with each data point. When satisfied with the file and column specification, hit the return key or click on the Continue=> arrow. The selected data file will be checked to ensure it has the number of columns required, and loaded if suitable. If the file you indentified when invoking Multiplot has previously been written by Multiplot, it will autoload without presenting you with the DATA SELECTION WINDOW. If no data file exists, Multiplot may be opened without any data by deleting the file name (click on the "None" button, highlight the file name entry box and hit Right-Amiga-X, or backspace over the text) and hitting return or clicking on the Continue=> button. THE PLOT WINDOW The PLOT window fills the entire high resolution screen and contains a hand crafted menu for your computing pleasure. Visible on the window will be a default plot of your data. This plot will show lines and points with a different colour and point type for each data set. The PLOT window contains 5 regions. The central area is where the data is represented. The left margin contains the Y values and Y axis label. The right margin contains the legend. The lower margin contains the X values and the X axis label and the top margin contains the title. On starting Multiplot, the pointer action is set to SELECT. In this mode it is possible to select objects to alter their characteristics. A data set may be selected by clicking the left mouse button near one of its points. A legend may be selected by clicking the left mouse button on it. In this mode, double clicking on an object will call up window to change some feature of the object. Double clicking on a point in a data set will call up the CUSTOM PLOT window, and allow you to change line type, colour, point type and point size of the data set. It will even allow you to skip rend- ering that set or delete it completely. Double clicking on a legend will call the EDIT TEXT window, to allow you to edit the text in the legend. Double clicking in the top margin will call up the EDIT TEXT window to allow you to edit or add a title. Double clicking in the bottom or left margin calls up the X AXIS or Y AXIS windows, which allow you to set the minimum and maximum tic values, the number of tics, and edit the axis label. In the SELECT mode, it is also possible to move text around the screen by pressing the left mouse button while the pointer is over the text, holding it down, and dragging the text to the desired location. If the movement is small, a screen refresh may need to by forced by selecting the menu option ACTIONS/Redraw. Several blocks of text can be moved together, without changing their relationship to each other by group selecting them. Click on one block of text, hold down the shift key and select the others, then without releasing the left mouse button, drag the blocks of text to their new location. The pointer action can be set to ZOOM or SLIDE by selecting these subitems from the Pointer Action option in the EDIT menu. The action of the pointer in these modes is described below. The menus available are PROJECT which relates to the loading, saving and printing or plots, EDIT which allows you to delete, copy, paste, import and export data and text, ACTIONS which allows modification of the plot, resizing, shifting and zoom, OPTIONS which changes the screen palette, changes the axes, grid and cross hair on or off, and FUNCTIONS which allows special actions like data smoothing, line fitting and data sorting. The major menu selections are described below. TEXT IN MULTIPLOT Multiplot supports three kinds of text: Operator independent, operator semidependent and operator dependent. Operator Independent Text The title, X axis label and Y axis label are operator independent. Their text is rendered in a preset position and cannot be moved. Their content can be edited. Operator Semi-Dependent Text The legends are operator semi-dependent. They are created with a small line in the relevant colour/line-type to their left and they are placed in the right margin which is sized to fit them in an aesthetically pleasing manner. They may, however, be moved and the right margin eliminated. They may be edited. Operator Dependent Text The text added to enhance a plot (arbitrary text) must be dragged to the desired location by the user. On screen text in Multiplot represents the actual location and size of printed text as a proportion of the graph's overall dimensions. The printed font used is the HP-GL default font, which is similar to Courier. On screen, this font may be represented by any mono-spaced font, and Courier is used if present in the Fonts: directory. Otherwise the default topaz.9 is used. A font requester will be added in the forthcoming OS/2 version of Multiplot. THE PROJECT MENU OPEN (Left-Amiga O) Returns you to the DATA SELECTION window for loading a new file. SAVE (Left-Amiga S) Plots may be saved in any of the following formats: IFF (loads into DPaint), Draw (loads into Draw2000 etc), IntroCAD (an excellent CAD program), mCAD (a PD CAD program), and HPGL plotter language. Please note the following restrictions: Currently Draw, IntroCAD, and mCAD saves do not include the numbers or labels on axes. This is because of the lack of font support in these programs. Draw saves require the program Plot2Draw to be in the same directory as Multiplot. IntroCAD saves require the program Txt_2_Icad to be in the same directory as Multiplot. Please Note: # Neither Professional Page nor PageStream handle Draw files with large dimensions very well. If your dimensions are greater than 200 units, these programs often scramble the data. Rescale your data to keep within these limits if you wish to import to either of these programs. Data may be rescaled by adding a line to the data file which begins with "*SCALFACT*" and contains scale factors by which data following is to be multiplied. Scale factor columns map to data columns after the keyword "*SCALFACT*" is discarded. # Professional page does not recognise Draw format line types. All line type information is lost in transfering Draw format plots to Professional Page. # mCAD does not handle plots with small dimensions very well. If your data is in hundredths of units, mCAD will not plot anything on the screen. This can be corrected by using *SCALFACT* to rescale data. # CAD file formats are very poorly optimised. As a result, saves of large plots may take a long time. PRINT (Left-Amiga P) Printing is achieved via the transparent use of the PLT: device. The plt-handler must be in your l: directory, and the PLT: mountlist must be added to your DEVS:mountlist. You do not need to mount the device. Multiplot will mount PLT: automatically if it is not already mounted. Notes on use of Plt: # Plt: opens its own window on the workbench when it starts up. This window relays information about how much of the image has been printed and the remaining system memory. It also provides a "close gadget" (The square with a dot in it for closing windows) which will abort the print. Use the left-Amiga-M and left-Amiga-N key combinations to switch between Multiplot's screen and the workbench. This will be corrected in a future release of Plt:. # Multiplot checks for the presence of the Plt-handler in the L: directory before attempting to mount Plt:. If this file is not present, Multiplot will not print, even if the Plt: device has been mounted by some other mechanism. # The Plt: device checks the print resolution requested in preferences. If you want the nicest possible quality print-outs from Multiplot, set your printer density setting (graphics screen 2) to "9". QUIT (Left-Amiga Q) Quit exits the program without saving any changes. THE EDIT MENU UNDELETE (Left-Amiga Z) Replaces the last blocks of text or data sets deleted. Only a single level of undelete is maintained, but it may contain multiple items if, for example, several data sets were group selected and deleted. COPY (Left-Amiga C) Places a text version of the setected data sets or text blocks in the clip board for transfer to another plot or program. PASTE (Left-Amiga V) Reads the clipboard. If the clip has been written by Multiplot, it will be added to the current graph. If it consists of 2 columns of numbers, the first column will be assumed to be X values, and the second, Y values. If there are 3 columns, the third will be assumed to be error-in-Y. Blank rows are interpretted as end/beginnings of data sets. Legends and text can also be read, if they conform to the flat file data format described above. CUT (Left-Amiga X) Places a text version of the setected data sets or text blocks in the clip board for transfer to another plot or program, and then deletes it from the current plot. DELETE (Delete key) Removes data set(s) or block(s) of text currently selected. THE ACTIONS MENU MOUSE ACTION Allows the user to select the mode in which the mouse works. The options are Select, Zoom and Slide. Select (Left-Amiga-Shift !) The select mode allows the editing of data sets or axes by double clicking the left mouse button over them. This action calls up a window for editing their characteristics. This mode also allows the movement of text by click-dragging, and selection of text or data sets for manipulation. It is possible to select multiplot data sets my selecting one set, and holding down the shift key while selecting the other sets. The same method can be used to group select text. Zoom (Left-Amiga-Shift #) Allows closeup views of areas of the data, and to adjust the axes to desired values. After selecting ZOOM from the menu, the mouse may be used to draw a box on the screen to indicate the area of the plot to be enlarged. This is achieved by clicking and holding the left mouse button, dragging the mouse, and releasing the left mouse button. The maximum limit of enlargement is 1,600 times. Zooming out to reduce the size of the plot by one half is achieved by double clicking the left mouse button. Slide (Left-Amiga-Shift ^) After selection the mouse may be used to draw a vector on the screen to indicate the direction and amount the plot should be moved. This is achieved by clicking and holding the left mouse button, dragging the mouse, and releasing the left mouse button. LOCKS Allows either the X or Y dimension to be frozen while the other is zoomed or rescaled. very useful when used in conjunction with the other items in this menu (Zoom, Slide, FullPlot). This allows you to arrange the scale of the plot to best advantage. The Subitem X AXIS will lock the amount of zoom in the X axis, and the subitem name will change to "X LOCK ON". The lock may be turned off by reselecting the subitem. The same applies for the Y AXIS selection. the BOTH LOCKS ON selection will lock both axes. They can be both turned off with BOTH LOCKS OFF. The amount of zoom can be manually set from the X and Y AXIS windows. Unless locked, the following options will reset the veiw of your data: Full Plot, Redefine Plot, Sort, Linear Fit, Smooth, Exponential Fit. REDRAW (Left-Amiga R) Redraws the screen with the same zoom as currently set. It should be used to repair the screen of unwanted rendering, or an incomplete refresh. This option is different from FULLPLOT and REDEFINE PLOT which will reset to either the full plot, or if the X or Y locks are on, to the locked plot size. FULLPLOT (Left-Amiga F) Redraws the screen with the default axis settings. This plot will show all data points and the extremes of any error bars. It will not overcome locked axis settings, so if you have defined a set of minimum and maximum axis values, it is wise to lock them with the BOTH LOCKS ON option. REDEFINE PLOT (Left-Amiga D) Presents the user with the CUSTOM PLOT WINDOW for each data set in succession. This is useful for editing all data sets, editing the chacteristics of a data set plotted as a line (when it may be difficult to recognise where the points are for selection with the mouse) or if a data set has been skipped (possible from the Custom Plot window) and not plotted. This action is destructive in the sense that any zooming that has not been locked will be lost. ADD TEXT (Left-Amiga A) A legend may be added to an unlabelled data set by selecting it (single click of left mouse button near any point of the data set) and choosing this menu option. A EDIT TEXT window will appear in which the legend text may be typed. This is also another way of editing existing legends, and can be used to add arbitrary text if used without selecting a data set. THE OPTIONS MENU CROSS HAIR (Left-Amiga L) Provides a cross hair for the cursor to assist with zooming, sliding and movement of text blocks. GRID (Left-Amiga G) Allows the selection of a cross grid, tics, or no marks on the axes. AXES Allows the selection stem and leaf, box or no axes drawn. RIGHT MARGIN (Left-Amiga M) Toggles the right margin space for legends. ERROR BARS (Left-Amiga E) Toggles the error bars on and off. This option is ghosted if data for error bars is not available. PALETTE The screen palette may be altered by calling the neat requester, which was written by RJ. The only non obvious feature of the requester is that by clicking the left mouse button on the RGB characters, the requester is converted to a hue/saturation/lightness requester for those who think that way. The SAVE Subitem will attempt to write a file called MPlot.def to the same directory as Multiplot, or failing that, to the s: directory. This file is in the same format as the screen palette files produced by the program "Colour" by a nationalistic Canadian bloke. THE FUNCTIONS MENU SMOOTH DATA Select a data set by clicking the left mouse button near one of its points, and then select this menu option. A new data set will be created in which each Y value is the mean of the surrounding Y values from the original data set. A requester will appear enabling you to enter the number of values each side of the point for the mean to be taken over. This action is destructive in the sense that any zooming that has not been locked will be lost. LINEAR FIT Select a data set by clicking the left mouse button near one of its points, and then select this menu option. A new data set will be created in which will represent a straight line fit of the data. The formula of the line is shown in the legend. This action is destructive in the sense that any zooming that has not been locked will be lost. EXPONENTIAL FIT Select a data set by clicking the left mouse button near one of its points, and then select this menu option. A new data set will be created in which will represent a exponential fit of the data. The formula of the line is shown in the legend. This action is destructive in the sense that any zooming that has not been locked will be lost. COMMAND KEY SEQUENCES Multiplot fully supports keyboard shortcuts using the right Amiga key. A full list of shortcuts and mneumonics is listed below: Key Command Mneumonic A ACTIONS/AddText dd Text B OPTIONS/Axes/Box ox C EDIT/Copy (not available) opy D ACTIONS/ReDefine Plot Reefine Plot E OPTIONS/Error Bars rror Bars F ACTIONS/Full Plot ull Plot G OPTIONS/Grid/Grid rid H PROJECT/Save as/HPGL PGL I PROJECT/Save as/ILBM LBM J not used K PROJECT/Save as/Draw Save in AD format L OPTIONS/Cross Hair Cross Hair ines M OPTIONS/Right Margin argin N PROJECT/Save as/IntroCAD ItroCAD O PROJECT/Open pen P PROJECT/Print

rint Q PROJECT/Quit uit R ACTIONS/Redraw edraw S PROJECT/Save ave T OPTIONS/Grid/Tics ics U OPTIONS/Screen Title p the top bit of the screen writing V EDIT/Paste (not available) Commodore guidelines W PROJECT/Save as/Data rite data X EDIT/Cut (not available) Commodore guigelines Y OPTIONS/Axes/X and Y X and Z EDIT/Undelete Commodore guidelines Please note that there are three other keyboard shortcuts that allow you to swap between mouse actions. These also require that the right Amiga key is held down. Shift-1 (!) ACTION/Mouse Action/Select Shift-3 (#) ACTION/Mouse Action/Zoom Shift-6 (^) ACTION/Mouse Action/Slide The Escape and Delete keys are supported: Esc PROJECT/Quit Del EDIT/Delete THE CUSTOM PLOT WINDOW For each data set for plotting, this window can be called to allow you to select plot colours and whether data is plotted as a line, series of points, both, or a step plot. If points are drawn, the point size and point type can be selected. If a line is drawn, the line pattern can be selected. The colour, plot type (point, line, both), and line type are selected by repeatedly clicking the left mouse button on the buttons that represent the current selection. The point type is selected from the pannel of six mutually exclusive button on the right of the window. The CONTINUE button will accept changes and proceed to the Plot window where the plot is rendered. The SKIP button will skip a single data set, so that it will not be plotted when the PLOT window is opened. The missing data set can be recalled by selecting the Redefine plot option from the EDIT menu, and pushing the CONTINUE button when represented with the data set. The KILL button is similar to the SKIP button but its effects are permanent. A dead data set can be revived with EDIT/Undelete. The STOP button will skip all remaining data sets without presenting the Custom Plot window for them will not alter the plotting of the data set currently being edited. THE AXES WINDOW For either or both the X and Y axes, this winow can be called by double clicking the left mouse button over the axis to be edited with the Mouse Action menu option set to select. This window allows the minimum and maximum axis values and the number of tics to be selected, and editing of the axis label. THE FUTURE Probable enhancements to come are: font requester, bar graphs, log axes, postscript support, splines and polynomial line fitting. Suggestions welcomed. BETA TESTERS WANTED If you would like to see the latest version of Multiplot, why not volunteer as a beta tester? Send disk and return address to the address below. CONCLUSION Multiplot is the first intuitive Data plotting program for the Amiga. It allows extremely rapid visualisation of experimental data with a wide selection of output formats. It does a simple job, but does it well. If you have suggestions, questions, bug finds, please write: Dr Alan G Baxter, Walter & Eliza Hall Institute, c/o Post Office, Royal Melbourne Hospital, Parkville 3053, AUSTRALIA WEHI::Baxter_A Baxter_A@wehi.dn.mu.oz.au Baxter_A@wehi.dn.mu.oz.au@MUNNARI.OZ.AU wehi.dn.mu.oz!BAXTER_A@harvard.edu Ph (03) 380 9206 Thanks to Tim Mooney for the great code, Graeme Riddle and Jens Hohmann for testing, Peter Leviton for help with the maths and Rich Campeaux for suggestions.