Swap X, Y anomalies(?)

raydela · Post by **raydela** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 8:23 am

Hello Mr. Hyde:

I am entering my data from Excel by using multiple "Insert Link..."
Also, each set of data needs to have Swap X, Y applied -- I'm the using the Polar Chart and my data is in Magnitude, Angle(in Degrees) order.

1.) Swap X, Y setting is not persistent: I entered my first set of data then selected Swap X, Y (for all curves). When I entered my 2nd data set, the Swap X, Y setting did not act upon the newly entered data and I had to apply it again to the 2nd data set.

2.) I went to my Excel spreadsheet and changed a data point in the 1st curve to confirm the DDE link to DPlot. After I changed an Excel cell entry for the 1st curve, the 2nd DPlot curve reverted back to the non-swapped condition!. (But the 1st curve retained its swapped X, Y state just fine.)

Ray[/u]

Post by **DPlotAdmin** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 9:48 am

1.) Swap X, Y setting is not persistent: I entered my first set of data then selected Swap X, Y (for all curves). When I entered my 2nd data set, the Swap X, Y setting did not act upon the newly entered data and I had to apply it again to the 2nd data set.

It isn't intended to be persistent. Instead, it's an operation you can perform (and more than once, so making this persistent can't be made to make sense). What's needed instead is a checkbox under 'Insert Link' and 'Paste Special' to indicate that the data should be swapped. But... a checkbox won't be sufficient, because you can link and/or paste 3 or more columns. So what's needed is something similar to the 'Pick columns to plot' dialog for file type D, which allows you to ignore columns, select which column is X, etc. And your selection there would be tied to the link, so your #2 wouldn't be a problem.

2.) I went to my Excel spreadsheet and changed a data point in the 1st curve to confirm the DDE link to DPlot. After I changed an Excel cell entry for the 1st curve, the 2nd DPlot curve reverted back to the non-swapped condition!. (But the 1st curve retained its swapped X, Y state just fine.)

Hmm... that's not the behavior I saw when I tried this just now. Any change in Excel causes all data associated with a link to be replaced, with X for both curves again coming from the first column (This is assuming you did an Insert Link on 3 columns which resulted in 2 curves). This is how it should behave.
While fooling around with this I did notice a bug, though. Currently you can only have one link per document and have things work as expected, though DPlot won't attempt to prevent you from doing 'Insert Link' multiple times nor does it warn you that this won't work correctly.

raydela · Post by **raydela** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 10:37 am

Aha

I think I see the problem: You mention 3 column data, which implies the notion of different magnitude measurements at regular angle intervals (or vice-versa). However I need to enter my data as 2 Links from 2 columns each as the magnitude, angle pairs for each curve are independent:
That is, I assume 3 column polar data is much like the question, "What is magnitude A and Magnitude B at such and such an angle (pre-determined by me)". My data is in the form of, "What is the resulting Vector A (mag,ang) and Vector B (mag,ang) for measurements take under 2 differing circumstances".
Actually, in my application, I am plotting 3 curves for 3 measurement sets of 8 vectors each -- 3 Links of 2 Column (8 Row) data.

Can you make the Insert Link... accomodate this multiple 2 column data entry?

Ray

Post by **DPlotAdmin** » Fri Sep 12, 2003 12:21 pm

That is, I assume 3 column polar data is much like the question, "What is magnitude A and Magnitude B at such and such an angle (pre-determined by me)".

Yes, that's correct.

Can you make the Insert Link... accomodate this multiple 2 column data entry?

Yes, if I do something like I mentioned above similar to the "Pick columns to plot" dialog, which also allows you to specify that the columns are alternating X,Y rather than X,Y,Y,Y. I'll try to get this into the next release.