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Introduction to LAS version 7 User Interface

 

The v7.0 UI: a transitional step

The v7.0 user interface, released as an Alpha product herein together with the Armstrong package, is a transitional step. The v7.0 UI incorporates new and more flexible programming paradigms (e.g. Ajax), while retaining major elements of the style of user interactions found in v6. For example the v7.0 UI has retained the characteristics of the LAS v6 UI that require the user to understand the abstraction of a "VIEW" (e.g. select from lat-long, lat-depth, depth-time, ...). With the release of v7.1 support for the v6/Armstrong UI will be dropped altogether (though the XML configuration files will be backward compatible to the greatest degree that is feasible). Significant advances will be incorporated in how the user will interact with the UI. The improvements to the UI are a work in progress at the present time. Suggestions and discussion are welcome at las_users@noaa.gov

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LAS v7 UI layout

1

 This area of the LAS is used for such things as:
  • Selecting Datasets
  • Selecting Product Types (ie 2d plots, netCDF files, Google Earth, etc)
  • Customizing Product Types (ie color palettes, expressions to evaluate)

2

This area of the interace is where the user submits a product request as well as applies constraints to the requested data, such as

  • Latitude and Longitude regions
    • These can be applied by dragging a region on the map, or by entering values into the text boxes surrounding the map
  • Temporal regions

3

 This area is where the product request from LAS shows up - unless the user has requested that products are sent to a separate window
4 This area is for custom footers which may be applied by LAS installers
 

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Getting a product from LAS

Example: Create a 2D xy color plot of Sea Surface Temperature from the coads climatology dataset.

 
Step 1: Select the Coads climatology dataset
 

 
 
Step 2: Select spatial layout for product
 
 
 
Step 3: Select desired product
 
 
 
Step 4: Submit request to LAS
 

 
Step 5: Enjoy the results
 

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Changing the options for a product

Example: How to modify the default values LAS uses to create a product. In this example, we will change the specified color pallete for our SST plot, as well as create a larger image:

First, to change the output size of the plot - open up the "Output Options" menu item and change the "Plot Size", as shown below:

 
 


Similarly, to change the the output palette, simply change that menu item as shown below:

 
 

 

Once those changes are made, hit the "product request" button:
And this plot is our new result

 

There are many other options that the user can play with, and it's important to note that these options can be "view" specific or possibly even dataset specific.

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Using the LAS V7 Map selection tool

The version 7 LAS User interface introduces a new Map selection too - based entirely on javascript.

V7 Map selection tool snapshot

The user has two options in terms of how the product is request and where the requested product is sent:

  • The requested product can either be displayed in the LAS product window, or, by selecting "Output to a new window", sent to a new window. Outputting to a new window may be handy for things like creating hard copy output.
  • The user is also given the choice to have the LAS products created automatically. If "Auto update plot" is selected, after a user makes a selection (a new region, or a new variable, etc) the resulting LAS product is requested automatically (without the user clicking on the "Submit Product Request" button) and displayed.

 

The user also has two options in terms of how to select a region on the map:

  • The user may enter latitudes and longitudes into the selection boxes by hand, as shown below:
  • The user may instead chose to select a region on the map by clicking the mouse and the dragging the resulting rectangle to define the area of choice. An example of this is shown below:
  • Once the selection rectangle is drawn, in order to modify the selection region, the user will need to simply need to repeat the process of drawing a new rectangle.

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