Table of Contents
SyncView does not require any formal installation. The only important thing to remember
is that if you are using a configuration file it must be in the same directory as the
executable, otherwise SyncView will start up with its default configuration.
To run SyncView enter java -jar syncview.jar at the command prompt. On some
systems you may be able to launch SyncView by double-clicking on the JAR file. If you are
not using the executable JAR file read Building SyncView from the source
code.
To build SyncView from the source code run javac *.java from the source directory.
This will create the java class files. To run SyncView run java SyncView.
To add a source to the source list, click on the tab labeled Source and click on
the button labeled Add. Navigate to a directory containing a data source and click
OK. If the source is valid, it will appear in the list and the toolbar buttons
will be enabled. Any number of sources can be added to the list. As sources are
added to the list, the animation range automatically adjusts to cover the largest
possible interval even though some sources may not have data for the whole range.
To remove a source from the list, select it and click the button labeled Remove.
More than one source can be selected using the Ctrl+click or Shift+click method.
Once there is at least one source in the list, press the first button on the toolbar
. This will open a new window for each source in the
source list. Each window will be positioned at the beginning of its respective
source.
Once there is at least one window open, the toolbar can be used to manipulate
the source data.
The Forward and Back buttons, 
and
respectively, move one time unit forward or back.
The slider bar can also be used to move forward and back.
The 
and 
buttons move to the
first or last date of the animation sequence as defined on the Animation tab.
Once again, not all of the open sources may have data for these dates.
The Stop and Play buttons, 
and 
respectively, control animations. Pressing play will animate every open source, excluding any
sources which are already animated. Once a source is being animated, it cannot be manipulated
in any way until it is stopped. Pressing stop will stop all animations.
To change the rate of animation, adjust the refresh interval slider on the Animation
tab. The refresh interval cannot be set lower than 300 milliseconds.
Right-click on any open source window to bring up a menu of window manipulation commands.
Clicking Cascade will cause the windows to cascade down and to the right of the
window from which the command was activated. Clicking Tile will resize all the
windows to the same size as the window from which the command was activated and will tile
them to the right and down. Clicking Close All will close all open source
windows.
When a new source is added, the source directory is checked for a file named format.xml.
If this file is found, it will be parsed and used to set the date format for the source. If the
file is not found, the default timestamp is used. The default timestamp is conveniently described
in the example format.xml file below.
The document must be enclosed in <format> tags. The actual format string is
specified between <string> tags. The format string is assumed to be a valid
Java date format string. For information on Java date format strings see the J2SE 5.0 documentation for
SimpleDateFormat.
Optionally, a step value from one date to the next may be specified in the format.xml file.
This is done between the <step> tags by specifying the step amount and step field
with the <amount> and <field> tags. The step field is the
field of the date that should be incremented and can take the value of year, month,
day, hour, minute, or second. The step amount
can take the value of any non-zero integer. If the step field is not specified, it is assumed to
be day. If the step amount is not specified, it is assumed to be one.
Below is an example format file. This file also represents the default date format that is
used if no format.xml file is found in a source directory.
<format>
<step>
<field>day</field>
<amount>1</amount>
</step>
<string>yyMMddHH</string>
</format>
This file specifies a format string of yyMMddHH which means two-digit year, two-digit
month, two-digit day, and two-digit hour with no separating spaces or characters. The file also
specifies a step amount of one day.
By default, the application handles gif, png, and jpeg.
Other formats can be added by adding them to the <extensions> field
of the configuration.xml file. The file extensions should be in a list
separated by colons. The extensions should be listed with no period.
The state of any open windows are saved when the application shuts down. Animated windows
are saved as well, however, when the application is restarted they will not be animated.
Also, due to the asynchronous nature of animation, shutting down the application without
stopping all animations first can lead to unexpected results when the configuration is reloaded
at application load time.
It is highly recommended that all animations be stopped
when the application is terminated.
This application is written for the J2SE 5.0 framework. The application was written by
Michael DellaNoce, an undergraduate at Virginia Tech, working under Dr. Christopher North
and Robert Ball.
Please direct questions about the application to
syncview@vt.edu.
There are a few small issues with the current version of SyncView. These issues
will be fixed in a later release.
- Degradation of performance with many sources
- Rare but strange behavior when tiling source windows
- Help window only opens on some systems
- Less than graceful handling of poorly formatted sources
- Unresponsive slider bar
If you encounter a bug not listed here please send a detailed description of the bug
to syncview@vt.edu.