Customizing Chart Display

Performance Explorer displays charts in a standard format but offers numerous possibilities for customization. You can enable scaling, overlay graphs, highlight graphs, export charts, and more. These display options can be found on the Chart tab, which is a contextual tab. It displays when you create or select a chart.

Create a chart and drag measures from the tree onto the chart.
On the Chart tab, in the Chart group, you have the following options:
- Scaling: The scaling feature allows you to visually equalize graphs in a chart. This means that measures with big values and measures with small values can be displayed appropriately and a meaningful chart can be drawn. Without scaling, measures with small values would display as flat lines, while measures with big values would display as steep lines. To set a specific scaling factor for individual graphs, select a factor from the Scaling list, in the Series group on the Series tab.
- Overlay Graphs: When you overlay graphs, all graphs are shifted to a common start time, regardless of the actual start time. Use this option when you are viewing a chart that contains measures from tests with different starting times.
- Logarithmic Y-Axis: Changes the linear y-axis into a logarithmic y-axis.
- Highlight: Emphasizes the selected graph with a thicker line.
  Tip: Highlighting graphs is useful while you work with and view charts in Performance Explorer. However, make sure to uncheck this option before you export or print a chart.
- Scale Similar Series: Performance Explorer applies the same scaling factor to similar series. Similar series are series with the same type (see the Type column in the measure list). To use this feature, progress as follows: Drag a measure with a certain type onto an empty chart. Right-click the measure and select a custom scaling factor (not Auto). Enable Scale Similar Series, on the Chart tab. Drag further measures with the same type onto the chart. Performance Explorer automatically applies the scaling factor that you have manually specified for the first measure.
- Properties: In the properties, you can type a Caption and a Description for the chart. These will display above the chart when you export or print it.
- Export: Exports the active chart as a .csv file or as an Excel document. When you click Export As CSV File you can choose from a range of file types, like .csv, .htm, .mht, or .png.
In the Display group, you have the following options:
- Series Points: Displays the series points of all graphs.
- Zoom Out: Resets the zoom level.
- Zoom & Scale: Zoom & Scale is enabled by default. It allows you to zoom into the chart, which means that both the x- and y-axis are adjusted. When you disable Zoom & Scale, only the x-axis will be adjusted.
- Measure List: Shows or hides the measure list. The measure list can also be regarded as the legend of the chart. However, it provides lots of additional information for each measure.
In the Generate group, you have the following options:
- Monitor Writer: Creates a new monitor writer with the real-time measures from a monitor graph.
- VUser-based Chart: Creates a new virtual user-based chart using the same measures as the active time-based chart. A time-based chart displays the measured values on the y-axis and the time on the x-axis. A VUser-based chart displays the number of virtual users on the x-axis.
In the Data group, you have the following options:
- Clear Monitor Chart: Clears all graphs from the active monitor chart.
- View in Browser: Shows the active chart as HTML document in a browser.