Working with charts in StatsMan

There are a lot of features packed in to the StatsMan charting system.  Let's dig right in and expose some of the best features.

Expand a chart to edit it

In the default and drill down views, you can expand a chart by clicking its title bar.  This will expose the chart's legend which will allow you to add or remove series from the chart.

Link back to any chart

The link at the top right of any given chart is always up to date, so after adding or removing series to a chart you can copy the link and bookmark it to see the same counters at any time.

Create a custom chart

The default view in StatsMan is great, but there are many, many more counters included than what is shown by default.  Create a custom chart by clicking the Chart menu, then click Custom Chart.  A new page will appear with a new chart with only one counter for CPU usage.  You can then customize the chart using the series controls in the legend below the chart.

Use a filterable list of all counters to add a new series

If you'd prefer to type (or paste) the name of a counter to add, simply click the "+" button to add a new line, then click the "Add..." button at the right side of the empty line.  A dialog will appear that will allow you to type to filter by all available counter names in the system.

Easily add a related series to the chart

Using the chart legend, it's possible to clone a series and modify only one part of that counter name to display a new, related chart series.  Simply click the colored button to the left of the counter name, and a duplicate row will appear below it.  Edit the portion of the counter that you want to change, and then click the Add button at the end of the row to add the new series to the page.

Highlight a series on the chart

Clicking the same button that clones the series line will also highlight a given series on the chart.  Clicking on a series in the chart will also highlight the same series.

Mouseover for details

Mousing over a data point on the chart will show you all available details for that data point, including the full counter name, local and UTC time stamps and the full decimal value for that sample.

Zoom/Pan the chart

It's possible to zoom/pan the chart directly to see details more clearly.  The zoom controls are located to the right of each chart.  Clicking the X button will allow you to zoom in and out on the X axis only, while the XY button will allow you to zoom both axes together.  To do so, click to enable the desired zoom mode, then scroll the mouse wheel over the chart.  Alternatively, clicking the background of the chart will enable X axis scrolling, and double clicking will cause the chart to zoom in. Deselecting either zoom option will restore the chart to the default zoom level.

Show data points on the chart 

Setting the maximum points displayed in the control panel to <50 in the default view, or <200 in a view where there is only one chart shown will cause the individual data points to become visible on the plotted chart.  Zooming the chart window out to show the same number of points will also show points on the chart.

Download chart data for external use

While the charting system in StatsMan is extremely flexible, you may wish to download the data for use in another tool, such as Excel.  To the right of each chart is a button marked with a down arrow.  Click this button to download all of the data from the chart in an easy to use CSV format (hint, this is directly open-able by Excel).

 

As always, if you have any questions about this or any StatsMan functionality, drop us a line in the comments or on Twitter @SkypeStatsMan.