quickplot(1) General Commands Manual quickplot(1)
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 --geom-
etry=1000x300-0+30
-C RGB --grid-color RGB
RGB may be in one of these formats:
o #RGB (each of R, G and B is a single hex digit)
o #RRGGBB
o #RRRGGGBBB
o #RRRRGGGGBBBB
o A name from the X color database, which may be in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/rgb.txt. Example colors are "steelblue" and "gains-
boro".
-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) sep-
arator. 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:
o --start VALUE or -r VALUE set the first value in the sequence to VALUE. The default first value will be zero.
o --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 win-
dow 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 libsnd-
file library
KEYBINDINGS
Quickplot has GUIs for all of the following immutable keyboard short-cuts:
o a show information about Quickplot using a web browser
o b toggles the visibility of the button bar
o c copies the current focused main window frame
o d delete the main window. This will not close the last main window.
o f makes a new main window frame
o g show/hide the graph configuration widget
o h show help using a web browser
o i save a PNG image of the graph
o m show/hide the menu bar
o n make a new graph
o o open a data file
o p show/hide the plot lister widget
o q quit
o s toggles the visibility of the status bar
o t toggles the visibility of the graph tabs
o 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 pub-
lished 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.
quickplot(1)