A.2.5 Toolbar Buttons

There are a number of buttons on the Control Window's toolbar; these are the most convenient way of invoking most of TOPCAT's functions. They are grouped as follows:

Import and export

Load Table

Pops up the Load Table dialogue which allows you to load a table into TOPCAT. If a table is loaded it becomes the new current table.

Save Table(s)/Session

Pops up the Save Table dialogue which allows you to write out tables in various ways. You can either write out the current Apparent Table, or multiple tables, or save (much of) the current session state.

Broadcast Table

Broadcasts the current Apparent Table to any applications registered using the SAMP or PLASTIC protocol. See Section 9.

Table views (see Appendix A.3)

Data Window

Displays the table rows and columns in a scrollable viewer so you can see the cell contents themselves.

Parameters Window

Displays table "parameters", that is metadata which applies to the whole table.

Columns Window

Displays metadata about each column such as data type, units, description, UCDs etc.

Subsets Window

Displays the currently defined row subsets and enables new ones to be defined.

Statistics Window

Displays a window for calculating statistical quantities for the values in each column of the table.

Graphics windows

Histogram

Displays a window for plotting 1-d histograms.

2d Scatter Plot

Displays a window for plotting 2-d scatter plots.

3D Scatter Plot

Displays a window for plotting 3-d scatter plots on Cartesian axes.

Spherical Scatter Plot

Displays a window for plotting 3-d scatter plots on spherical polar axes, with or without a radial coordinate.

Stacked Line Plot

Displays a window for plotting multiple stacked line plots against a single X coordinate

Density Map

Displays a window for plotting 2-d density maps (image-like histograms on a 2-d grid of bins).

Matching and joining (see Section 5)

Pair Match Window

Displays a dialog for joining tables side-by-side by locating rows which match between them.

Multiple Cone Search

Displays a window which permits a positional crossmatch between a local table and a remote table exposed via a VO Cone Search service.

Concatenation Window

Displays a dialog for joining tables top-to-bottom.

Note that matches involving a single table, or more than two tables, can be done using the options in the Joins menu.

Miscellaneous

SAMP Window

Displays a window which displays detail about the current status, and allows configuration, of SAMP messaging (see Section 9). Note this button will not be visible if TOPCAT is running in PLASTIC mode.

Available Functions

Displays a window containing all the functions which can be used for writing algebraic expressions (see Section 7).

Help

Displays the help browser, open at the entry on the Control Window.

Exit

Queries for confirmation, then exits the application.