5. Viewing reports

The Graph Analyser displays interactive graphical and textual reports, and you can interact with these in a number of ways to get to the information you want. Each report has a few different options that are only relevant to that report, but they all share some features in common, as described in this section.

When you open a report, its file path is displayed in the title bar of the report window.

5.1. Using the side menu

When you’re loading some report data, and the Summary Report is displayed, the side menu becomes visible on the left-hand side of the application window. This contains buttons at the top for viewing each of the main report types, and three buttons at the bottom:

• Reload report: Re-import all the report files. This may be required if any of the files from which an open report was generated have been updated since you opened the report. See Reloading reports for more information.

• Close report: Close an open report, which “unloads” all the report data from the application and returns you to the Home screen. If you want to view those reports again, you’ll need to open the report.

• Documentation: Open the in-app help. If you were viewing one of the report pages, the help window opens up on the relevant page.

• Minimise/Expand: Control whether the side menu is expanded so that the menu option text is visible, or minimised, so that only the icons are visible.

5.2. Adjusting report size

There are several ways to change the size and scale of the report in the Graph Analyser:

• You can increase and decrease the display size of the entire application (including the Help window) by using the Ctrl/Command keys with the + and - keys to magnify and shrink the display size, just as you would in a web browser. There are three zoom options in the View menu that show the shortcut keys. Reset Zoom resets the magnification level back to its default setting.

• To zoom in and out of a particular section of the graph, click and drag horizontally in the graph preview area above the main graph, and the display will change to show the graph that corresponds to that section of the data. A pair of limiter icons appear in the preview area to show the start and end of the data displayed in the main graph area. These can be dragged left and right to change the amount of data in the main graph. Using the scroll-wheel on your mouse scrolls the report page up and down, but you can zoom by holding down the Ctrl/Command key.

You can choose how you want your scroll wheel to behave (if you want it to scroll or zoom by default) by setting the Scroll behaviour preference.

• You can also click and drag the main graph itself to view areas to the left and right of the currently viewed area. Note that clicking without dragging can sometimes select a specific tile (for example, in the Memory Report), but you can clear this selection from the input text box above the graph.

• You can reset the zoom scale of the Memory and Liveness Reports by clicking on the small button to the left of the preview area, top-left of the graph. This zooms out to the furthest level, showing the entire graph.

• To make a report larger, so that you can see more detail, you can drag the edges of the window to increase its size. This resizes the report images as you drag.

• To adjust the space that each half of a report takes up on the page, click the splitter icon between the two halves of the report, and drag it up and down. The two report sections resize accordingly. Note that the Program Tree and Execution Trace reports also display a vertical splitter icon when comparing two reports, so you can choose how much of each report fills the available screen space.

5.3. Navigating report graphs

If the report page contains a graph, and you have selected a datapoint on it by clicking it, you can use the arrow keys to move the selection to the previous or next datapoint. If you hold down Shift while using the arrow keys, the datapoint selection will move by ten datapoints at a time.

Similar to most web pages, you can use Tab to cycle through interactive elements on the report page, and this includes the graph itself, which displays the standard blue selection border when it has focus.

Each of the graph plots has an Options button in the top left-hand corner which allows you to hide the graph keys.

Each of the graph plots also has a Reload button in the top left-hand corner that allows you to reload the graph data manually.

5.3.1. Using the Navigation panel

In the top left-hand corner of a report graph, there is a small compass icon that, when clicked, opens out into a navigation panel that allows you to move around the report easily with the keyboard. This is particularly useful if you don’t have a mouse.

When you hover your mouse over each icon in the navigation panel, you can see the equivalent quick-key for that action.

• Click the compass icon to open the navigation panel. You can click it again to close it, or click on the < icon at the panel’s right-hand end.

• Click on the magnifying glass icons to zoom in or out of the graph, or type in the magnification percentage you’d like to zoom to (and press Enter).

• Click the << and >> icons to pan the graph left and right.

• Click the ? icon to jump to the in-app help, where you can see all the keyboard commands listed.

5.3.2. Keyboard graph navigation

As well as using the mouse to navigate, you can use keyboard commands to pan and zoom in the report. This is particularly useful if you don’t have a mouse. The keyboard shortcuts are:

• Pan Left: A

• Pan Right: D

• Zoom in: W

• Zoom out: S

If you hold down Shift you will pan and zoom further with each step.

5.4. Graph data keys

Below a graph plot are one or more keys with a coloured block and the name of the dataset that’s being plotted in that colour on the plot.

• You can hover the mouse over a key to highlight the data plot on the graph that’s associated with that key (other data plots will be ‘greyed-out’).

• You can click on a key to hide that dataset from the plot, and it appears with strike-through styling.

If you’re comparing two reports, there will be a set of keys for the source and the target reports. You can hover your mouse over a key, and the full path to that report is displayed.

5.5. Saving report images to disk

You can save report graphs to disk as image files or copy them to the clipboard, to avoid having to make screen captures.

• Click on the camera icon in the top right-hand corner of a report.

• Select whether to save to a file or copy to the clipboard.

• If saving to a file, select the directory on your computer where you want to save it.

• Messages are displayed if the image was successfully copied to the clipboard, or if failed to save to disk, depending on which choice you’ve made.

Report images are saved as PNG files, and capture the entire visible part of the report screen, including any detailed information displayed in the tabs below the graph. They also reflect the currently selected theme colours.