Small Graph Data Tooltip Bug

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Wilsonator
Posts: 45
Joined: 25 Sep 2015, 19:10

Small Graph Data Tooltip Bug

Post by Wilsonator »

I noticed this bug using a 1+7 view page. When showing a graph on one of the small views the data tooltip sometimes vanishes depending on the location you are selecting.

From what I can tell, since the side the tooltip is printed on is determined based on the location of your mouse (so that the tooltip is not printed off screen, thank you for adding that by the way!) there is a problem when the graph is small. If the tooltip lengths is longer than half the width of the view window a deadzone is created where if you place your mouse on a graph line near the center of the window no data tooltip is printed at all! This is is slightly annoying, however a workaround for me is to put the graph on a bigger window to evaluate it. I think that basically the tooltip can't figure out which side to print on since no matter which side it is printed on it will be partially displayed off screen.

My suggestion would be to either rework the way the tooltip is printed so that when this case is detected it can be printed slightly offset below or above the cursor, or maybe to add the tooltip output to an information bar below the console/debug/error window at the very bottom of the screen. The only problem with the second option is that when your cursor is near the edge of a graph, I do notice that neighboring graphs begin to detect the cursor and display tooltip data of their own, this bug would also need to be rectified to avoid confusion on which data tip is being displayed in the information bar. Or another option would be to add the ability to click on the on plotted lines which would display the current selected coordinates in the information bar, therefore you only have one data point active and being displayed in the information bar at a time (don't have to work on the neighboring graph issue).

Actually I might suggest both options, I think having an information bar at the very bottom of the screen could be very beneficial for some basic information to be displayed. This could supplement, and be partially redundant for, the text information dropdown box on the simulation window. I know that when I record simulations I would be happy to have a bar like this to display metrics such as current simulation time, total real elapsed time since simulation start (i.e. the actual real run time of the simulation, possibly even an option to exclude time when simulation was paused). I always hide the text dropdown when I record simulation for better visuals, however a bar at the bottom of the screen is much more minimal and would be very desirable to have that information recorded in my videos.

Even better, you can add basic functionality to the bottom information bar (data tooltip coordinate selection display, current simulation time, current real runtime) and add the ability to customize this bottom bar through an lua script which would have access to the api allowing users full ability to display whatever they want there. The more I ramble about this information bar the more I like this idea.

Sorry, that post got away from me a bit. That is the bug I found and suggestion to deal with it!

coppelia
Site Admin
Posts: 10339
Joined: 14 Dec 2012, 00:25

Re: Small Graph Data Tooltip Bug

Post by coppelia »

Hello,

thanks for the input. We'll try to address that point in future. We have now slightly modified some things and now only one view will track values. At the same time you can always shift the view content when simulation is stopped or paused, in order to reach the values you can't read. You can also double-click a small view to swap its content with the largest view. In the larger view you can then more conveniently read values, then when you are done, swap the two views again.

About the status bar displaying various types of information: you can already do something similar using a customization script and the new custom UIs that are Qt-based. Have a look at the demo model located at Models/infrastructure/floors/infiniteFloor.ttm: the attached customization script is in charge of displaying some model data in a dialog, when the model is selected.

In your case you could have the customization script display a dialog that contains the information that matters to you (such as simulation time, etc.)

Cheers

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