Introduction

The following sections provide a brief summary of the options found in the View pulldown menu, such as access to the various toolbars (Figure 1). Additionally, the View menu provides access to the various layout options, Graph panes, Log panes (Message Log, Project Log and Error Log) and Model Information panes (Model Diagram, Model Description, Information File).

Toolbars

The View menu provides quick access to the various StressCheck dockable toolbars. You may remove a tool bar from the display, or replace it again by selecting the corresponding menu option from the View Menu. To show all toolbars, select View > Toolbars > All Toolbars. Learn more about toolbars in the following:

• Main Toolbar Overview
• Views Toolbar Overview
• Edit Toolbar Overview
• Attributes Toolbar Overview
• Display Objects Toolbar Overview
• Display Options Toolbar Overview

Windows Layout

Use View > Window Layout to save, restore, and delete layout configurations of the dock-able toolbars and panes. Toolbars may be docked or floating, while panes may be docked, floating, or tabbed (Figure 2):

Additionally, Auto Hide and Hide options are available for each pane.

Saving a Window Layout

If the user sets a preferred layout configuration of toolbars and panes, the layout may be saved by clicking the Save option under Window Layout.

The Save Current Layout dialog will appear to allow the user to enter a name for the current layout (e.g. Layout 1). Once saved, this layout may be restored for any session (Figure 3).

Restoring a Window Layout

To restore a saved layout, click on the layout name (e.g. Layout 1) under Window Layout. The layout will automatically be restored.

Deleting a Window Layout

To delete a saved layout, click the Delete option under Window Layout and select the layout name (e.g. Layout 1) to be deleted.

Default and Previous Layouts

Note that a new StressCheck session will use the same windows configuration when last closed independently of the Default or saved configurations. To restore the default layout, click the Default option under Window Layout.

To restore the previous layout, click the Previous option under View > Window Layout.

Startup Window Layout Preference

The Options pane (File > Options) allows the user to specify the Window Layout preference for new sessions/on startup. The default is “Last Session”. To change, simply specify the preferred Window Layout under “Window Layout:” and click OK.

Graphs

Use View > Graphs to set focus to any open Graph panes generated during the current session, combine all Graph panes (Combine All), or close all Graph panes (Close All). Graph panes can be floating, docked or tabbed (Figure 4).

Combining all Graph panes provides for seamless tabbed navigation between Graph panes (Figure 5):

The Graph defaults may be changed via the customization options, and data may be exported from the Graph for external analysis. For more details on Graph options refer to the Graph Overview.

Logs

Message Log

Use View > Message Log to view the Message Log pane (Figure 6). The Message Log pane collects all messages logged during the current session. Message Log messages are categorized according to the following convention:

• Info: general information messages generated by the program during the current session.
• Warn: warning messages generated by the program during the current session.
• Error: error messages generated by the program during the current session.
• File: file I/O messages (e.g. saving a project) generated by the program during the current session.
• Input: model input commands performed by the user during the current session.
• Undo: undo/redo commands performed by the user during the current session.
• Solve: solutions performed by the user during the current session.

Note: Message Log messages may be filtered by enabling/disabling message categories. To clear the Message Log, click the Clear button (note that this operation is irreversible).

Project Log

Use View > Project Log to view the Project Log in the Log Pane. The Project Log contains timestamps and descriptions of all user activities performed in the Input dialog as well as solution runtime information.

In general, any action performed while in the Input dialog that creates, deletes, edits, moves, or replaces an object or record will be logged herein. The text in this log cannot be edited but can be copied or searched. If the cursor is left at the end of the text the log will continue to scroll as actions are performed. If the cursor is placed elsewhere in the log, no scrolling will occur until the cursor has been moved back to the end of the log.

Note: the Project Log persists when saving the StressCheck Project (*.scp) file.

Error Log

Use View > Error Log to view the Error Log pane. The Error Log contains all error messages generated in the current session. The error log includes timestamps so it is clear which errors or warnings are the most recent.

Model Diagram

The Model Diagram pane (View > Model Diagram) provides the ability capability to capture, edit and save an image of the model view, or upload a model schematic containing parameter names and descriptions if creating a digital handbook model. The Model Diagram pane features are as follows:

• Clicking the Add button will allow the user to upload an existing image file (in JPEG format) as the new model diagram. Note that this action will overwrite any existing model diagram.
• Clicking the Edit button will open a bitmap editing interface and the currently captured model diagram will automatically be loaded into the bitmap editor.
  • The bitmap editor dialog provides standard bitmap editing operations such as line drawing, text labeling, erasure, etc.
  • You may save your new model diagram in either bitmap (.bmp) or JPEG (.jpg) format. JPEG is the default, and is usually the preferred format since it is more compact and thus requires less space for image storage.
  • If using Save As to save in bitmap format, be sure to use the Resize option to save with 256 colors or less. Images modified in the editor may also be saved to the Windows clipboard for transfer to other applications.
• Clicking the Capture button will open a small dialog for the user to define the model diagram capture size.
  • You can choose to capture a standard “100×100” or “200×200” pixel model diagram, in which case a rectangle will appear that can be positioned over the Model View, or you can choose “Any size” in which case a cross-hair will appear so that you may outline the area of the screen to be captured for use as a model diagram.
  • The captured image is deposited on the Windows clipboard, and may be transferred to any other Windows application using the clipboard.
  • The model diagram image is also saved as a JPEG file with the same name as the current session, with the extension .jpg.
  • This image becomes the model diagram associated with the current model and will appear if you click View > Model Diagram.

Model Description

The Model Description pane (View > Model Description) provides basic information describing the current model file: a title, description/comments and keywords.

Title

The user may supply a model title that will appear in the graph and report documents produced by StressCheck during post-processing. This title should be representative of the model problem statement.

Description

The description field is intended to provide instructions/background information to users not familiar with the details of the model, and to document essential information related to the modeling process. For example, the user may supply information describing default material properties, a description of modeling assumptions, expected results for the current parameter values, or perhaps a reference to the source for analytical solutions to the model problem. To perform a carriage-return (i.e. drop down to next line) click the “Enter” key while holding down the “Ctrl” key.

Keywords

The Keywords section helps to identify the model reference, theory, application and essential details (e.g., 3D, Planar, Buckling, Fracture, Nonlinear, Hole, etc.) during browsing. The user may supply any number of keywords (as shown in Figure 8).

Information File

The Information File pane (View > Information File) provides a facility for displaying PDF documentation pertaining to each individual model file via the Adobe Acrobat Reader library. The Information File pane will be populated anytime StressCheck finds that a model file has an accompanying file with a .pdf extension, or when the user clicks the Import button and selects a .pdf file. This .pdf file might contain instructions for executing the model, an explanation of modeling assumptions, sample graphic images, or any other information which may be helpful to the model user.

Note that a .pdf file may be created using Microsoft Word, or any other document preparation software with .pdf export capability (e.g., Windows XPS viewer, Microsoft Print to PDF).