Customizing Charts

How do I customize a chart?

FRED uses a third-party chart control tool for the display and processing of visual data.  This chart control, a product of Component One, LLC, has a set of advanced settings and features which can be accessed and modified through FRED.  Additionally, there are two help documents for this component located in the directory C:WindowsHelp with the filenames  olch2d8u.chm and olch3d8u.chm, pertaining to the 2D and 3D chart controls.  An alternative way of accessing the chart help is by right mouse clicking in the chart view, selecting Advanced from the list menu and then clicking on the Help button in the dialog.

The fact that the chart controls are provided by a third party means that there are two steps for customizing the chart views, one for the chart control and one for FRED.  The steps describing this customization are provided below. 

Procedure

1. With a chart open in FRED, customize the settings of your chart using the following options:
   1. Visit the Chart tab of the FRED preferences found on the Tools > Preferences menu
   2. Right mouse click in an open chart window to access chart appearance options such as, Chart Color and Chart Color Levels
   3. Right mouse click in an open chart window and select the Advanced option, which gives you access to all settings of the ComponentOne chart object.  For full documentation regarding the Component One advanced controls please refer to the Help content described above.
2. Once the chart appearance has been customized, right mouse click in the chart window and choose Advanced from the context menu.
3. Press the "Save" button on the resulting dialog and save this as a custom chart style file (3D plots have extension, "oc3", and 2D plots have extension, "oc2").  This file contains the specification for the current chart appearance. Each analysis type will have its own "style file", so if you have customized the 3D display of an Irradiance analysis you might consider saving your style file as, "MyCustomIrradiance.oc3".
4. In FRED, open the Preferences dialog by navigating to Menu > Tools > Preferences and then choose the File Locations tab.  In the File List, select the chart type whose settings you wish to customize and then using the File Location browser select the saved file from (3) above.
5. Press OK to accept the settings.  The next plot window should be displayed with your custom settings.