Editing of Group Incremental Lists

There are several approaches to assigning attributes to the individual plots in a group. Incrementing behaviors can be saved with the graph template, they can be applied at the time of graph creation by turning on a System Theme, or they may be applied after the graph is created by loading a previously-formulated Theme (.OTH) file.

In any case, plot attributes of grouped plots are controlled by a Group Incremental List, the basics of which are covered in this topic.

To modify the appearance of a group of plots and change the way in which plot elements increment through their various lists, begin by opening the Group tab of the Plot Details dialog box.

1. To open, activate the graph window and choose Format: Plot from the Origin menu.
2. If it is not active, click on the Group tab.

Enabling or disabling incrementing of a particular plot attribute

To set a plot attribute to automatically increment:

1. Select the check box in the Increment column next to the attribute -- Line Color, Symbol Type, etc. -- that you want to vary. Conversely, if you do not want an attribute to increment, clear this box.

Controlling list ordering and contents

To modify a list for a particular attribute:

1. Right-click once at the right edge of the Details column. A "browse" button will appear.

   

2. Click once on the browse button to open the list dialog.
3. Drag list elements to rearrange the list.

   

4. Right-click on the list to Add or Delete colors from the list or to Save a list as a Theme (.OTH) file or Load a previously saved .OTH file.
5. To replace any member of the list, click once on the list member and make your selection from the drop-down list.

Controlling whether your lists increment in Nested or Concerted fashion

When lists increment in a Nested fashion, you establish a hierarchy of attributes in which all elements of the first attribute list are exhausted before the elements of the second list begin to increment. When lists increment in a Concerted fashion, all incrementing attributes cycle through their lists of elements simultaneously.

To choose between Nested or Concerted incrementing behaviors:

1. Right-click anywhere within the Group tab list controls and choose Nested or Concerted from the shortcut menu.

Ordering of Nested attributes

When incrementing in a Nested fashion, attribute order determines which attributes are incremented first and which begin to increment only after the preceding attribute lists have been exhausted.

To reorder the plot elements:

1. Drag a particular element to the preferred position within the list.

Saving a list (.OTH file)

You can store increment lists by re-saving the graph template. An even more flexible arrangement is to save the increment list as a separate file, the advantage being that you can apply your customizations to existing graphs as opposed to only being able to apply them to new graphs.

To save a List:

1. Right-click anywhere in the Incremental List controls.
2. Choose Save Increment List from the shortcut menu. Note that if you Save from this window, you save all lists of elements plus incrementing behaviors.

If you save from within one of the lists (see Controlling list ordering and contents, above), you save only the elements of the list:

Loading a list (.OTH file)

Once a Group Incremental List is saved as an .OTH file, you can load it to apply it to an existing graph.

To load a List:

1. Right-click anywhere in the Incremental List controls and choose Load Increment List Note that if you load from this location, all .OTH files are listed.

If you load an .OTH file from inside one of the element lists, note that the available list of .OTH files is filtered. Only .OTH files that are appropriate to the current attribute will be listed.