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Managing Chart Viewer Layouts

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This section describes how to manage the items of your Message Analyzer Chart View Layouts asset collection. Also included are discussions about using the Message Analyzer Sharing Infrastructure to share Chart viewer Layouts with others and how to receive automatic updates for this collection.

Managing the Chart Viewer Layouts Library

To manage the Chart viewer Layouts in the Message Analyzer Chart View Layouts asset collection Library, you will use commands that are available in the Manage Chart Layout dialog, which is accessible from the global Message Analyzer Session menu by selecting the Chart, Layout, Manage Layouts, and Manage items in succession.

The Message Analyzer Chart View Layouts asset collection Library has a Message Analyzer category for the default asset collection that contains the built-in Layouts that are described in the Built-In Chart Viewer Layouts topic. This Library also contains a My Items category from where you can manage any Layouts of your own design that you saved. The commands that are available in this dialog are described in Managing Chart Viewer Layout Library Items.

All the Library collection items in both of these categories are shareable Layout items. Message Analyzer provides a simple way to expose your Layouts asset collection items to others for sharing or to retrieve Layouts that others have shared. You can share Layout collection items directly with others by using the Export feature in the Manage Chart Layout dialog to save one or more Layout collection items to a designated file share. You can also use the Import feature in the same dialog to access Layout collection items that have been shared by others.

More Information
To learn more about managing Message Analyzer asset collections, including the Message Analyzer Chart View Layouts collection, see Managing User Libraries.

Using the Layout Commands

This section briefly describes the Layout commands that you can use to manage any of the built-in Chart viewer Layouts or any new Layout that you have created. These commands are accessible from the Layouts drop-down list that appears on the Charts toolbar whenever a Chart viewer Layout is displayed. A descriptions of each command is specified in the list that follows:

  • Save Current Layout As... — the primary command that you will use to save a newly modified Chart viewer Layout as a custom Layout of your own. When you click this command from the Layout drop-down list on the Charts toolbar, the Edit Chart Layout dialog displays with the Layout configuration and formulas that you specified, where you can provide a Name, Description, and a Category for your custom Chart viewer Layout.

  • Load Default User Layout — appears in the Manage Layouts submenu of the Layout drop-down list that displays on the Charts toolbar. Enables you to load the default user Layout that you previously specified with the Save Current as Default User Layout command.

  • Restore Application Default Layout — appears in the Manage Layouts submenu of the Layout drop-down list that displays on the Charts toolbar. Enables you to load the application default Chart viewer Layout, which consists of a bar element visualizer that displays the relative distribution of message volume for each protocol or module that was captured in a set of trace results.

  • Save Current as Default User Layout — appears in the Manage Layouts submenu of the Layout drop-down list that displays on the Charts toolbar. Enables you to save the currently displayed Chart viewer Layout as the default, such that you can display it any time thereafter by executing the Load Default User Layout command.

Utilizing the Message Analyzer Sharing Infrastructure

You can share your Layout collection items through the Message Analyzer Sharing Infrastructure by using the Export feature of the Manage Chart Layout dialog to post one or more Layouts to a file share or other designated location that is accessed through a user-configured feed. You can create your own feed from the Settings tab in the Asset Manager dialog, which is accessible from the global Message Analyzer Tools menu. Thereafter, you can update existing Layout collection items or add others to make them available to team members or other users through the configured feed, where they can view, synchronize, and download them. However, the synchronization feature that keeps users up to date requires some manual configuration at this time, as described in Manual Item Update Synchronization.

Message Analyzer also has a default subscriber feed that appears on both the Downloads and Settings tabs of the Asset Manager dialog. On the Downloads tab, the feed enables you to view the default assets provided with Message Analyzer. On the Settings tab, the feed provides the path that enables the Message Analyzer application to download the Message Analyzer Chart View Layouts asset collection from a Microsoft web service at first Message Analyzer startup. It also enables you to receive asset collection updates that are periodically pushed out by the service, as useful Layout assets are developed at Microsoft for the community of Message Analyzer users. To receive updates that will appear in the Message Analyzer category of your local Message Analyzer Chart View Layouts asset collection Library, you must set this asset collection to the auto-sync state on the Downloads tab of the Asset Manager, as described in Downloading Assets and Auto-Syncing Updates.

Managing Chart Viewer Layout Library Items

You can manage Layout items in both categories of your local Message Analyzer Chart View Layouts Library. The following features are available to do so:

  • Item selection — you can select Layout collection items to include in an export configuration by selecting all items in the Message Analyzer category, the My Items category, or both. You can also select any combination of individual collection items in these categories to include in the export.

  • Context menu commands — the following context menu command is available by right-clicking any collection item in the Message Analyzer category of your local Layouts asset collection Library:

    • Create a Copy — enables you to create a copy of an existing Layout collection item, such as the Average Response Times for Operations layout, and place it in your My Items category. You can then launch this copied Layout in an Analysis Session and use the controls and features of the Edit Chart Layout and Formula Editor dialogs to edit and customize the Layout to your own design and then save it under a new name of your choice, as described in Overview of Configuring a Custom Chart Viewer Layout.

The following context menu commands are available by right-clicking any collection item in the My Items category of your local Layouts asset collection Library:

-   **Edit** — enables you to save a **Layout** collection item with a new **Name**, **Description**, and **Category**.  

-   **Create a Copy** — enables you to create a copy of a **Layout** collection item and use it as  a functionality template for creating a new **Layout** that will have similar components in the configuration.  

-   **Delete** — enables you to delete any **Layout** collection item in the **My Items** category. When you select this command, all selected **Layout** collection items are immediately deleted without any prompt. Note that you cannot delete any Library collection items in the **Message Analyzer** category.

  • Import — enables you to open the Select Library to Open dialog from where you can navigate to a Layout asset collection. When you exit this dialog by clicking the Open button, the Select Items to Import dialog opens, from where you can choose the Layout items you want to import and the category into which they will be placed. Note that you can navigate to a user-designated file share or other location from the Select Library to Open dialog, to import a Layout asset collection that another user has posted in that location.

  • Export — enables you to open the Save Library dialog, from where you can specify a library Title along with optional Description, Author, and Organization information. When you exit this dialog by clicking the Save button, the Select Library Location dialog opens, from where you can navigate to a user-designated file share or other location to post your Layout asset collection files.

More Information
To learn more about sharing Message Analyzer asset collection Library items, including further details about the common Manage <AssetType> dialog, see the Sharing Infrastructure topic.
To learn more about the manual synchronization process for a user-configured feed, see Manual Item Update Synchronization.
To learn more about auto-syncing and downloading item collections, see Managing Asset Collection Downloads and Updates.