Options

Use the File..Options menu command to customize ViewHAR:

•Sort headers alphabetically. You can have ViewHAR sort the headers before displaying them. Otherwise (the default), you see the order in which the headers were written to the file. The latter is useful, for example if you are using a TABLO program to perform a lengthy calculation. You might write out intermediate results as they are calculated. If sorting is off, ViewHAR will list the headers in the order in which they were calculated.

•Once ViewHAR sorts the headers it forgets their original order - so you might have to open the file again. If you save the file to disk, the headers are written in the order in which they are displayed. If you re-order headers the alphabetic sorting will be switched off.

•Show numbers with set elements. Set element labels will be diplayed with row and column numbers. Incompatible with next option.

•Use numbers not set names or elements. Used when you need to know how large matrices are, or when you want to find row 63, rather than the "MetalProds" row. Incompatible with previous option.

The next 3 options are only enabled if your display has 16-bit colour or better.

•Row shading shades rows in groups of 3. This could help your eye to move along the rows without losing track.

•Show active row/col has the effect of subtly distinguishing data table cells in the same row or column as the active cell (the white cell that you clicked). Useful for tracing along a row in a very wide table.

•Cell colouring has the effect of colouring cells (of real matrices) according to whether they are larger than other elements in the same row or column. It might help pick out a pattern or an anomaly.

Another group of options makes various features of real matrices visible on the Contents page:

•Show totals: you can choose for the contents page to show the total of each real matrix.

•Show number of zeros: you can choose for the contents page to show how many zeros each real header contains. Zeros in your data can cause division-by-zero and other problems.

•Show number of negatives: you can choose for the contents page to show how many negative numbers each real header contains. Very often, negative items in data matrices indicate a problem. Search through the data page for a minus sign to find the actual negative numbers.

•Show size: you can choose for the contents page to show how many numbers each real header contains.

•Show coefficient names. RE type matrices (created by TABLO-generated programs) have coefficient names as well as long names. This makes them visible.

•Show minimum value: This option enables you to see at a glance on the contents page if a large negative occurs in a matrix.

•Show maximum value: This option enables you to see at a glance on the contents page the largest number in a matrix.

•Show largest absolute value: one way to check data is to compute and write arrays of differences (for example, [sales-costs]) which ought to be zero. This option enables you to see at a glance on the contents page if a large non-zero has appeared.

•Show smallest absolute value: sometimes useful in problem debugging.

•Show total of absolute values: handy if you want to see if an error vector shrinks after some operation.

Another group of options controls the Relabelling feature.

Other options:

•Default shares for zero denominator: ViewHAR will display real matrices as row or column shares: this checkbox controls how the share 0/0 is represented. If NOT checked 0/0 is shown as zero; if checked, 0/0 is shown as 1/N, where N is the number of rows or columns.

•Prompt before file overwrite: off by default, warns if you save to a file name that exists. See Renaming Old Files.

•Message about backup files: switch this off if you hate those messages when old versions of existing files are renamed. See Renaming Old Files.

•Ignore bad headers: By default ViewHAR refuses to open any file which does not conform strictly to the HAR file format. If you select Ignore bad headers, ViewHAR will be more forgiving, and will simply skip over headers that it does not understand (you get a warning if it finds any). See Bad Headers.

•Enable annoying WinXP flashing taskbar: Windows XP is often reluctant to allow programs to spring to the front of the screen -- instead their icon flashes on the task-bar. Usually ViewHAR, TABmate and ViewSOL switch OFF this annoying "feature". However, you can check this box to restore the annoyance.

•Fujitsu format: You can choose your preferred format for new files, and control whether all HAR files that ViewHAR saves to disk follow your preferred format. You can have ViewHAR warn you if you open a HAR which is not your preferred file type. See Lahey and Fujitsu file formats.

•The Use decimal point not comma will be enabled only if your Windows environment is set up to use a comma (instead of period) as the decimal separator. In this case you can make ViewHAR ignore the Windows settings and use a period as the decimal separator. See Decimal point or Decimal comma

•Prefer first slice to sum: By default ViewHAR adds up rightmost dimensions to display 3- and higher-dimension matrices. If you select Prefer first slice to sum ViewHAR will select the first element of rightmost dimensions to display 3- and higher-dimension matrices.

•AutoAggregate: Normally, if you are viewing a matrix with 3 or more dimensions and try to alter the aggregation combo boxes so that the 'ALL' option is selected for more than 2 dimensions, you get an error message. When this option is selected, if you alter one aggregation combo box so that the 'ALL' option is selected for more than 2 dimensions, ViewHAR will set the rightmost of the other ALL combo boxes to Sum (so that the display is 2-dimensional).

•The Display SL4 files in SOL view causes ViewHAR to present SL4 files in a user-friendly way. Uncheck this option if you want to see how SL4 data is actually stored. See also Opening SL4 solution files.

•The Use sparse disk storage option causes real matrices written by ViewHAR to be stored in sparse form, if they are mostly zeroes. Warning: if you want to retain compatibily with older GEMPACK programs, make sure the option is switched OFF. ViewHAR can still read sparse matrices, whether or not this option is enabled. The setting in ViewHAR may also apply to other GEMPACK-related utilities written in Pascal (eg, DiffHAR or AggHAR). More information here.

•The Force visible file extensions option is enabled by default. Its effect is that, on closing, ViewHAR alters Windows settings so that file extensions are visible in Explorer. Uncheck the box if you really want to hide file extensions (then adjust Explorer as described here).

•The Automatically delete BAK files option is enabled by default. When ViewHAR opens a file, it searches through the folder of that file for files with suffix BAK. By default, any BAK files that are more than 2 days old are deleted. You can disable this behaviour. Note: TABmate behaves the same way -- you might have to disable the feature in TABmate also. The "delete BAK files" feature was added to both ViewHAR and TABmate in May 2014.