Archive Time Control Dialog
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## Archive Time Control Dialog

The Archive Time Control dialog is shown in Figure 1-2.

Figure 1-2. The PCP Archive Time Control dialog

The Archive Time Control dialog allows you to change the update interval, replay speed, current archive position, reporting timezone, and reported time resolution.

There are several ways to change the current archive position.

- Drag the slider to the desired position. This is the easiest method and allows rapid repositioning anywhere in the archive. When the slider is fully to the left this corresponds to the starting archive position, and when fully to the right this corresponds to the finishing archive position. These "archive time bounds" are reported in the “Archive Time Bounds Dialog” dialog (Options/Show Bounds).

- Edit the text box labeled Position and press enter. This allows you to specify an exact archive position to go to. It is often useful to clear the text box and paste a new time using the X11 paste buffer. The format supported is the standard ctime(3) format, so you can copy times from other PCP tools, from SYSLOG entries or whatever. You can also enter times of the day: any ctime fields that are missing will default to the start of the archive bounds. So for example, if you specified 13:00 then the new archive position will be the first occurrence of 1pm after the start of the archive bounds. If the new position is before the start (after the finish) of the archive bounds, then pmtime will display a warning message and then go to the start (finish) of the archive bounds. Refer to the PCPIntro(1) manual page for more information about partial time specifications.

- The final method of changing the current archive position is to use the VCR controls to "play" or step forwards or backwards through the archive in increments of the current update interval. There are three replay modes that can be selected in the option menu at the lower left of the dialog: Normal, Step and Fast.

  - The default mode, Normal will replay the archive in real-time, or at a multiple of real-time depending on the current value of the Speed text box. A Speed value of 1.0 corresponds to real-time. Values less than 1.0 are proportionally slower and values greater than 1.0 are proportionally faster. The thumbwheel widget to the right of the Speed text box allows the user to dynamically change the speed. As a convenience, when in Normal mode, double clicking on either the forward or reverse buttons has the effect of changing directly to Fast mode.

  - The Step mode allows fine positioning of the current archive position. In this mode, pressing the forward (reverse) step buttons causes the archive position to advance (reverse) by exactly one update interval.

  - The Fast mode replays the archive as fast as the application allows. The Speed setting has no bearing on this.

The update interval can be changed by editing the text box labeled Interval. The change does not take effect until the enter key is pressed. The option menu to the right of the update interval text box allows the units of the update interval to be changed from the default Seconds to other natural untis of time such as Minutes or Milliseconds. To change the reporting timezone, use the Options/Timezone menu choice and select a new timezone from the cascading radio menu. This will change the timezone used to display dates and times in the pmtime dialog and in all the applications attached to this pmtime instance.

The text box labeled Position is editable. Note that changes do not take effect until the enter key is pressed. If the new position is within the archive bounds, then all of the tools attached to this instance of pmtime will seek to the new position within the archive. If the new position is outside the archive bounds, then a warning dialog will be posted, and all of the tools attached to this instance of pmtime will seek to either the beginning or the end of the archive (depending which one is closer to the new position). The slider below the Position text box will be adjusted accordingly.

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Live Time Control Dialog |  | Archive Time Bounds Dialog