Time ranges¶

Every Worksheet has two time ranges, shown in bars under the trend: the Display Range and the Investigate Range. This page explains how they work and how to change them. Times use your Time zone. If you choose Auto detect, plintz uses your browser's time zone. The Display Range bar shows the active time zone in a non-clickable label at its far right. Worksheets don't have separate time zones. Changing your Time zone changes how times appear without reloading the page. The ranges keep the same instants, so they continue to show the same data.

The Display Range¶

The Display Range is the time range over which the trend shows Signals and Conditions. A new Worksheet shows the last day, ending now.

The Display Range bar has, from left to right:

• the start and the end, as MM/DD/YYYY h:mm AM in your Time zone;
• between them, the duration, such as 1 day, 6 hours or 1.7 days, with the quick change buttons around it and a menu of preset durations;
• Step to current time and Auto Update, after the end.

Ranges are closed, so they include both their start and end. A Sample exactly at either endpoint is in the range. Under Auto Update, the end is now and the range excludes that endpoint. Only Capsules are half-open. They include their start and exclude their end, so a Sample exactly at a Capsule's end belongs to the next Capsule.

The Investigate Range¶

The Investigate Range is the wider time range around the Display Range, over which the Details Pane's Conditions show their Capsules. A new Worksheet investigates the 7 days ending now.

The Investigate Range bar, under the Display Range's, has its start, duration and end, with the dates as MM/DD/YYYY, and a strip showing the Investigate Range:

• Small tick marks run along the top of the strip. Depending on how much time the Investigate Range covers, they mark every 6 hours, every day, every week or every month, on your Time zone's clock: at 0, 6, 12 and 18 o'clock, at midnight or at the start of the month.
• The Display Range is a highlighted region, with a handle at each edge.
• Each Condition in the Details Pane has a thin row of its Capsules along the bottom, in its color and in the Details Pane's order: filled for a certain Capsule and hollow for an uncertain one. They show where Capsules are, including outside the Display Range.

The Display Range always stays inside the Investigate Range, so any change that would move it out keeps them nested:

• A Display Range that leaves the Investigate Range, by zooming, panning, a new duration, a quick change button or typing it, grows the Investigate Range just enough to contain it.
• An Investigate Range that no longer contains the Display Range clips it to the part that is inside. If they don't overlap any more, the Display Range moves inside, to the nearest edge of the Investigate Range, keeping its duration if it fits.

The two arrows at the left of the bars copy one range into the other. ↓ copies the Display Range into the Investigate Range, and ↑ copies the Investigate Range into the Display Range.

The power button at the far right of the Investigate Range bar is Turn off the Investigate Range. When you turn it off, the strip keeps its tick marks, the Display Range's region and the fields. It hides the Capsules, and plintz stops fetching them. Press it again to turn it on. Whether it is on is saved with the Worksheet.

Changing a range¶

Every change you make to the ranges is one step of Undo, and one fetch of the data.

On the trend¶

• Drag across the trend to select a region. The Display Range zooms to it.
• Drag the time axis, under the trend, to pan. The trend follows the pointer, and the Display Range moves when you let go.
• Scroll over the time axis to zoom around the pointer: up zooms in and down zooms out, by a factor of 1.25 per wheel step. The Display Range changes once the wheel pauses, so one gesture is one step. Scrolling anywhere else on the trend scrolls the page.

Typing a start or an end¶

Click a start or end field. It shows its time with seconds and selects all of it, so typing replaces it. Press Enter to apply it, or Escape to restore the field. Click elsewhere and what you typed stays in the field until you press Enter or Escape.

Dates and times you type are read in your Time zone. A zone abbreviation after them, such as CET or UTC, is ignored: it doesn't change the zone. A time that the clocks skip when they go forward, such as 2:30 AM on the day they go from 2:00 to 3:00, is read as the hour after, and a time they show twice when they go back is read as the first one.

An offset is a whole number and a unit. The units are ms, s (or sec, secs, second, seconds), min (mins, minute, minutes), h (hr, hrs, hour, hours), d (day, days) and wk (wks, week, weeks). They are case-sensitive. Months and years vary in length, so they aren't read.

Days and weeks follow your Time zone's calendar, as do *-relative and $-relative offsets and durations: -1d is the same time of day on the day before, so a day is 23 hours long where the clocks go forward and 25 where they go back. A week is 7 such days. Hours, minutes and seconds are elapsed time: -24h is always 24 hours.

Entering a value changes only that field. The duration changes to match. Text plintz can't read, or a value that would put the start at or after the end, stays in the field, marked invalid with its error, and the range doesn't change. The errors read "Not a date, time or offset, such as 11/15, 9:00am, -1d or *-30d." and "Start must be before end."

The Investigate Range's fields take the same values. They show only the date until you edit them.

Typing a duration¶

The duration field takes a number and a unit, with or without a space: 1d, 12h, 90 min, 1.5 days, 2wk. The units are the ones above, and days and weeks are your Time zone's calendar days: 1.5 days is a calendar day and 12 hours. It keeps the range's end and moves its start. A duration it can't read, or no time at all, such as 0h, is rejected like a start or end, and Escape restores the field.

The button at its right, Duration presets, opens a menu of 15 min, 1 h, 6 h, 12 h, 1 day, 7 days, 30 days and 1 year (365 days), in the same calendar, with the one in force checked. Press Enter, Space or Down Arrow on the button to open it, use the arrow keys, Enter to pick and Escape to close.

Quick change buttons¶

Around the Display Range's duration, each moves the Display Range without changing its duration. Hover one for its name.

A step past the Investigate Range grows it.

On the Investigate Range's strip¶

• Drag inside the highlighted region to pan the Display Range.
• Drag one of its edges to resize it. The other edge stays put, and an edge can't pass the other. You can grab an edge within 6 pixels of it, but only when the region is wider than 16 pixels. You can only move a narrower region.
• Click outside the region to center the Display Range there, keeping its duration.

Drags and clicks snap to 10 minutes and stay inside the Investigate Range: they never grow it. The Display Range changes when you let go. The cursor changes to a double arrow over an edge, a hand inside the region, and a pointer elsewhere. Scrolling over the strip does nothing.

By keyboard, the region and each edge are sliders, named Display Range, Display Range start and Display Range end. Left and Right move one by 1% of the Investigate Range, Shift with them by 10%, and Home and End go to the Investigate Range's start and end. They aren't snapped, and stay inside the Investigate Range.

Auto Update¶

Auto Update, the ⟳ button, keeps the Display Range and the Investigate Range moving forward with now. Turn it on and plintz steps both ranges to now at once, keeping their durations, then updates them at a rate you choose in the Auto Update rate list beside the button:

• Auto, the default, updates once for each pixel's worth of time: the Display Range's duration divided by the trend's width in pixels, but never more often than every 5 seconds.
• 5 s, 10 s, 30 s, 1 min, 5 min, 15 min or 1 h.

Each update fetches the data of the new ranges, reads Uncertain Data again and recomputes Calculated Items. An update is skipped while the previous one is still loading, and updates pause while the browser tab is hidden and step to now when it is shown again. What you are typing in a field stays as the ranges move.

Turning Auto Update on and off, and its rate, are saved with the Worksheet and are steps of Undo. A Worksheet opened with Auto Update on steps to now. The updates themselves are not saved: the ranges are saved as the last update left them with your next change.

The following actions turn Auto Update off in the same Undo step: zooming, panning, selecting a region, using a quick change button other than Step to current time, dragging or using the keyboard to change the Display Range on the strip, using the copy arrows, or typing an end other than *. These leave it on, as long as they keep the Display Range's end at now: typing a duration or picking a preset for either range, Step to current time, typing a start, typing * in the end field or *-30d in the start field, and changing the Investigate Range's start, end or duration.

If you only have Read access, you can turn Auto Update on and it runs, but plintz doesn't save it.