Customizing the UI

Default Graph Layout

By default, when a client connects, the PStats server only opens a single strip chart window. It can be tedious to reopen the desired graphs every time that you make a change to the client and wish to re-analyze its performance. Therefore, it is possible to define which graphs are opened automatically when a client connects, including the positions these graph windows will have on screen. To do this, simply open the desired graph windows and move them around as as desired, and then click “Save Current Layout as Default” in the Graphs menu. This will cause the server to remember the current layout of the graph windows. The next time you start a new session and connect a client, all of the previously saved graph windows will be reopened.

Guide Bars

The running Panda client suggests its target frame rate, as well as the initial vertical scale of the strip chart (that is, the height of the colored bars). You can change the scale freely by clicking within the graph itself and dragging the mouse up or down as necessary. One of the horizontal guide bars is drawn in a lighter shade of gray; this one represents the actual target frame rate suggested by the client. The other, darker, guide bars are drawn automatically at harmonic subdivisions of the target frame rate. You can change the target frame rate with the Config.prc variable pstats-target-frame-rate on the client.

You can also create any number of user-defined guide bars by dragging them into the graph from the gray space immediately above or below the graph. These are drawn in a dashed blue line. It is sometimes useful to place one of these to mark a performance level so it may be compared to future values (or to alternate configurations).

Collector Colors

While some collectors are assigned colors in the Panda3D source code, other collectors will receive a randomly generated color. Sometimes, these randomly generated colors clash with other collectors, making the charts hard to read. It is possible to specify a custom color for a collector by right-clicking the label for this collector and choosing “Change Color”. The chosen color is immediately reflected in all charts showing this collector and stored in the session file if it is written to disk. To make the change apply to future sessions, use the “Save Current Layout as Default” option to commit it to the default layout.

Other Optional Collector Properties

A more permanent way to specify a color is to modify panda/src/pstatclient/pStatProperties.cxx, and add a line to the table for your new collector(s). You can also define additional properties here such as a suggested initial scale for the graph and, for non-time-based collectors, a unit name and/or scale factor. The order in which these collectors are listed in this table is also relevant; they will appear in the same order on the graphs. The first column should be set to 1 for your new collectors unless you wish them to be disabled by default. You must recompile the client (but not the server) to reflect changes to this table.