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The gstripchart program determines the parameters to display by reading a configuration file. The gstripchart program will look for a configuration file in the following order:
first, for a file specified on the command line,
then, for a file named gstripchart.conf in the current working directory,
then, for a file named .gstripchart.conf in the users home directory,
then, for a file named /etc/gstripchart.conf,
and finally, for a file named gstripchart.conf in the CONFDIR directory, which will usually be either /usr/share/gstripchart/ or /usr/local/share/gstripchart/.
There are a few command line switches that can be used to alter the behavior of the program. In addition to the common help, usage, version, Gnome, Gtk, and Session management options, the following gstripchart-specific options are available:
A standard X11 geometry specification of the form WxHXY.
Specifies a file from which to read configuration information, overriding the normal configuration file search order described in >.
Specifies the time interval in seconds between updates to the chart window and slider window. If unspecified, the chart window will be updated every 5 seconds and the slider window will be updated every 0.2 seconds.
Specifies the time constant in seconds to be used in low-pass filtering the data displayed in the chart or slider windows. A time constant of 0 seconds turns low-pass filtering off, which can result in a jumpy display. A time constant in the same range as the interval parameter, described above, is usually a good choice. Much larger values cause display updates to become sluggish. If unspecified, no low pass filtering is performed in either window.
Adds an application menu bar to the main window. Normally this is omitted, and the menu is popped up by right-clicking on the chart window.
Causes the display of the slider window to be suppressed.
TYPE specifies the type of display to be generated. The TYPE specifier can be one of:
gtk use the default gtk-based graphic display;
applet run as an applet in the Gnome panel.
The behavior of the gstripchart program is determined by the contents of the configuration file that it reads at startup. This file is located as described in >
This configuration file contains a series of optional application-wide configuration options described in >, followed by a series of parameter configuration options described in >, one for each parameter to be plotted. Each of these configuration file lines is comprised of RFC-822 style "keyword:value" pairs. A comment can be included anywhere within the configuration file by putting a sharp sign (#) in the first column of each comment line, and blank lines can be used wherever they will improve readability.
Here's an example of the initial portion of a gstripchart configuration file. It begins (as all files should) with a comment describing the purpose of the file. The comment is followed by three application-wide configuration options. The first sets the chart interval to 5.000, so that the "strip" portion of the display is updated every 5 seconds. Next, the minor tick interval is set to 12 chart update periods, producing a minor tick mark on the display at one-minute intervals. Finally, the major tick interval is set to 5 minor tick periods, producing a major tick mark on the display at five-minute intervals.
# # gstripchart.conf -- # an example configuration file # for the GNOME stripchart program. # chart-interval: 5.000 minor_ticks: 12 major_ticks: 5 |
The following application-wide configuration option keywords are available. Some are optional; some are only used by certain display types; many have reasonable default values, as described below.
The first group of keywords provide the same functions as the command line switches described in the previous section. The options in this group must be placed at the beginning of the configuration file, prior to the parameter definition section. If a value is supplied for any of these parameters both in the configuration file and on the command line, the command line value takes precedence.