Image 1: Side Legend

The legend shows each display under the "display category" of that display. For example, the legend in the above image shows the categories "Maps", "Plan Views", "Probes", "3D Surface" and "Imagery". The display category may be changed (see below). This is useful for grouping and controlling the visibility of a group of displays.

The legend label shows the parameter or field name, the display type, and sometimes other information such as the level of a plan view or value of an isosurface. The label may be changed by a user using items under the Edit->Properties menu item (described below). Clicking on the highlighted part of the label will bring up the displays control window. Right clicking will bring up the displays control menu.

The category display within the legend can be toggled to show or hide the displays under that category with the Toggle Category button. The details of a display can also be toggled with the Toggle Details button. The visibility of the displays under a category (i.e., the graphical display within the main view window) can be changed with the Category Visibility Checkbox. The visibility of an individual display can be changed with the Display Visibility Checkbox

The Remove button allows you to quickly remove a display. The Visibility Toggle Lock allows you to "lock" the current visibility of the display and not change it while doing the visibility cycling.

Detailed information about a display may also be shown in the legend. For example, for those displays that use a color table, the color bar will also be shown in the legend. Moving the mouse over the color bar shows intermediate values. Click on the color bar to get a Color Table Editor with the color table for that display.

The File menu has these common choices:

• Remove Display
  Remove the display.
• Save
  A variety of ways of saving the state of the display.
  • Save Data in Cache
    This allows you to save the current data of the display in a Cache Data Source as a new Field. You will be prompted for the name of the field. You can use this in a variety of ways:

    • After calculating a complex formula, selecting operands for the formula, etc., to create the data in a display you can save off the formula and the data that was calculated. Then you can create new displays from that formula without having to reselect the operands and recalculate the final data.
    • In a Web Map Server (WMS) display this allows you to capture the image and then make use of it in formulas and in other displays. For example, you can drape the image over topography.
  • Save As Parameter Defaults
    Allows you to save the current display state for the parameter as the default for that parameter in the future. See the Parameter Defaults Editor page for more information.
  • Save Display as Favorite
    Allows you to save the current display state (without the data) as a Favorite Display.
  • Save Display as Bundle
    Allows you to save the current application state as a bundle or Web Start JNLP file.
• Reload Data
  Reload the data for this display.
• Close Window
  If the Display Control is shown in its own window this is used to close the control window. It normally doesn't remove the control (unless a preference has been set).

• Color Table
  For displays that have a color table this menu allows you to edit the color table, change the range, choose a new color table, etc.
• Selector Color, et. al.
  Some displays (e.g., data probe) use a single color in the display (e.g., for showing the selector point or line). Use this menu to set the color.
• Change Parameter
  Some displays allow you to change the data parameter that is being used.
• Change Display Unit
  Some displays allow you to change the unit that is used in the display, e.g., changing temperature plots in Kelvin to Celsius.
• Change Contours
  Displays with contours allow you to change the unit that is used in the display.
• Use Times in Animation
  For displays that have a time associated with them, you can select whether the times are used to calculate the animation steps.
• Sharing
  This sub-menu allows you to turn on/off sharing and to set the "share group". When sharing is turned on certain state is shared among displays of the same type that are in the same share group. The share group can be an arbitrary name.

  For example, the location of a vertical cross section, the color table, location of a probe point, etc., can all be shared.

• Properties
  The Properties dialog allows you to change the display label, the display category, the id and the color scale properties for this display.

• Visible
  check box allows you to toggle visibility.
• To Front
  If this display is showing at the same level in 3D as another (e.g., satellite and radar images in the same display), you can use this menu to select which display is on top.
• Display List Color
  Allows you to set the color of the label for this control in the display list.
• Use Data Projection
  This will change the projection used in the view to the native projection of the display.

• Details
  Selecting this item brings up a window that shows detailed information about the display and any associated data.
• User's Guide
  Bring up the user guide entry for the particular display.

Image 2: Display Control Properties

The Legend Label field is the label used in the legend of this display control. It can contain arbitrary text as well as a set of "macros". The macros can be added to the label with the Add Macro button:

• Short Name This is the short name of the parameter being displayed.
• Long Name This is the long name of the parameter being displayed.
• Data Source Name This is the name of the data source that produced the parameter being displayed.
• Display Name The name of the display.
• Timestamp The time of the data that is currently being displayed using the default time format preference. You can also use a macro of the form %time:<time pattern>% to set a specific time format other than the default. <time pattern> follows the same rules defined in the User Preferences section. For example, %time:HHz EEE dd MMM yyyy% would give something like 12GMT Fri 16 Feb 2007.
• ... And other values depending on the display.

The Extra Legend Labels field acts like the Legend Label field (e.g., with macros).

The Display Label field acts like the Legend Label field to define the text label that is shown in the display list.

The Category field is arbitrary text and is used to organize the legend. The "<<" button shows a list of all of the current display categories and allows you to easily set this field.

The Id field is used to define an ID for this display. The ID is used for accessing particular displays from the IDV Scripting Language.

There may be a variety of check boxes:

• Show In Display List Allows you to toggle the visibility of the label in the view window. Note that you must enable showing the list of display labels that are toggled on using the View->Properties dialog of the view window, or by setting the global property for all display through the User Preferences dialog.
• Loc Visibility Toggle Locks/unlocks visibility toggling.
• Show Note Text Arbitrary text notes can be added to a display. This checkbox menu item shows or hides the text field that allows you to edit the notes.
• Use Fast Rendering When this is checked on, the IDV will not try to account for projection seams. This will cause displays to be rendered faster at the expense of accuracy.

There may be other tabs shown, depending on the display. For example, the Color Scale tab allows you to configure where the color scale bar is shown. The Spatial Subset tab allows you to define further spatial subsetting of the data.

• In the legend the Display Visibility checkbox to the left of the label can be used to toggle the visibility of that display.

• The function keys F1, F2, F3* can be used to cycle visibility as follows:
  • The F1 key cycles visibility through all non-locked displays, showing one at a time.
  • The F2 turns on all non-locked displays.
  • The F3 turns on all non-locked displays.
  *On a Mac laptop, you may need to press the "Fn" key along with the particular function key.
• The padlock icon on the right side of the legend bar is used to block the effects of the visibility toggling described above. When locked the visibility of a display is not affected by the toggling.
• Use the View->Visible checkbox menu item in each display control's menu.

Unidata's Integrated Data Viewer > Display Controls