PhixFlow Help

Menu Options and Toolbar Buttons

This page is for PhixFlow data modellers and application developers. It describes the different menu and toolbar options available in the PhixFlow interface.

Sections on this page

User Menu

On the top right of the PhixFlow screen is the  Users menu, which has the following options:

OptionDescription
 User Details

Opens a User Details Form allowing the user to change their own account settings (including their password).

Online SupportOpens a browser window into PhixFlow's online support desk. Your designated support contacts will have login details.
Send Feedback EmailOpens a new email window.
About PhixFlowShows general information about PhixFlow, in particular the current version that you are using.
 HelpOpens this online help system.
 Logout

Returns PhixFlow to the startup screen so that the user must log back in to resume work.

Status Bar

The status bar is at the bottom of the PhixFlow window. On the left the number of currently running actions is shown. There is also the button to show/hide the windows bar. If there are any notifications on screen, they can all be dismissed in one go by clicking 'Dismiss notifications'. This will dismiss the green notification pop ups but not red error/failure messages.

On the right are icons which can be used to access different features:

 Show PalettesOpen the palette panel on the right. You can drag preconfigured layout components from the palette into dashboards.
 Console
Show the System Console. This shows currently running tasks and log messages from processes run in PhixFlow.
 Show Repository
Open Using the Repository. This shows all of the available objects in your PhixFlow instance.
 Administration
Administration Menu. Options to Import Configuration, Export Full Configuration or Open Export Pane
  Design Mode
App Mode
The icon indicates which mode you are currently running. Click it to switch between App Mode and Design Mode.

The Windows bar appears in the bottom of the screen if 'Show Windows Bar' is selected from the footer bar. The Windows bar contains links to all open windows (both open and minimised). Click on a link to restore the window (if needed) and bring the window to the front of the screen. Each window link also has a context menu which allows you to close it directly.

For the Administration Menu, see Administration.

Property Tab Toolbar

When you open the property tab for a model or one of its modelling objects, the tab has a toolbar at the top. 

 OK

Save the current properties and close the tab.

 Save

Save the current properties and keep the tab open.

 Back

Toggle between the current property tab and one that was previously open.


 Forward
 Repository

Find in Explorer. This icon will bring the repository browser tab to the front and will close all nodes except those leading to this object.  You may need to scroll the explorer to see the selected object.

 Help

Context sensitive help.

 More Toolbar Options

If there is insufficient space on the header bar then some buttons are moved into this drop-down menu. The following options are always on the drop-down menu:

 Delete Delete the current object. Delete is:

  • permanent as there is no "undo" option
  • everywhere, so if the object is used by other models, it is also deleted there.

 Delete Close the current property tab. You can also use the X on the tab itself. 

The Audit trail is a useful way of reversing changes made by mistake as each audit entry shows both the new and old values. In the case of text fields, simply copy the old value and paste it into the form field.

Property Section Toolbars

Each property tab can contain a number of sections.  Each section has a header represented by a green bar with a small arrow before the section label which can be clicked to collapse and open the section. 

Some sections contain fields whereas other sections can contain grids.  Sections which contain grids may have a number of icons on them to allow you to add and delete records, see a more detailed grid with more columns or refresh the current grid.

 AddCreate and insert a new item into the list.
 Detailed List

Open up a grid showing more details about each item.

 Delete

Delete the selected item or items.

 Refresh

Refresh the list (e.g. if the list has been updated on another computer by another user).

 Add

Create and insert a new item into the list.

Model Toolbar

All objects have context menus associated with them which are accessed by right-clicking the mouse button. One key context menu item is Permanently Delete which is always the last item on the list (to help ensure it is not pressed accidentally)! 

Note that all objects that appear on Analysis Models have a context menu entry "Show Models" which will display a list of all the models that contain that object.

There are two types of grid display. The first are simply lists of the configuration objects but showing more details than the repository explorer. The second type of grid shows data e.g. Stream Items. The operations on configuration object grids are all very similar (e.g. add, delete, refresh etc.) however data grids will have additional operations which are all described on the help page for that object.

The following general features of grids are worth noting:

  • The items on grids are paged which means that PhixFlow fetches a batch of data at a time to populate the grid. The grid footer bar indicates which items are being shown, how many items there are in total and the page size. The user can page forwards and backwards using and . Note that the user can also change the page size (the number of rows brought back from the PhixFlow Database). Please note that with very large datasets it will be more efficient to filter the the data rather than page through it!
  • Columns can be ordered by clicking the column header. Each click reverses the order direction. Please note that only the items currently paged in the display are ordered.

The following functional icons are common to many grids:

Select an existing (or predefined) Filter or create, delete and modify Filters. This causes the grid to refresh and display only those entries which match the selected Filter.

Select an existing (or predefined) multi-column Sort Order or create, delete and modify Sort Orders. Note that data is ordered across all records which are implied by the Filter, not just the current page of data.

Export the data being shown to an Excel spreadsheet. However, please note that when viewing Stream Data, pressing this button causes an option form to open which amongst other things allows you to choose to export the data to Excel, CSV or HTML. Note also that this will export all data implied by the Filter, not just the current paged result.

When viewing data in a Chart, an Excel template can be configured on the Stream View that is used to specify the properties for the Chart.

Delete the currently selected items. A form will appear to confirm that you wish to proceed.

Refresh the contents of the current grid.

Open the help page for the grid.

Show or hide the paging bar

When you drag stream attributes onto a layout, such as a dashboard or form, PhixFlow prompts how to display the data.

IconTypeDescription

GridDisplay the data laid out in a table.

Line ChartPlot a line or lines to represent quantities against a horizontal axis of categories. 

BarchartsPlot a quantity as a set of bars aligned vertically against a set of categories along the horizontal axis.

Plot a quantity as a set of bars aligned horizontally against a set of categories along the vertical axis.

Pie Chart

Plot a quantity as a pie chart, grouped by a category.

FormLayout the stream attributes as a form

Most PhixFlow objects have an optional description field. PhixFlow will display this description as you hover over the item whether the item is on a list or on a model pane. We highly recommend that you provide descriptions for all your objects to help document your work for both yourself and colleagues.

Please let us know if we could improve this page feedback@phixflow.com