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Working with the explorer panes

The Explorer panes are a collection of dockable panes:

  • Data explorer: Gives access to all input data modules
  • Output explorer - Gives access to all Output views that are available for the model.
  • View explorer - Gives access to all Saved graphic views and Saved output views.

Double clicking on an item will open the appropriate view.

The Explorer panes are dockable panes whose always relates to the current model.

Data explorer pane​

The Data explorer pane organises the data into several categories.

Against each item is reported the number of records currently specified for the data module.

The right-click menu includes the following options:

  • Delete - Delete the contents of the selected module or a branch of modules. (Only enabled when the clicked item is editable.)
  • Copy - Copy the contents of the selected module to the clipboard in GWA format.
  • Copy all - Copy the whole model to the clipboard in GWA format.
  • Paste - Paste the GWA formatted clipboard contents, overwriting the current data.
  • Paste special - Specify, via the GWA Import options dialog box, how to paste the GWA formatted clipboard data, including the option to overwrite or append and the option to select the modules that are to be pasted.

Output explorer pane​

The Output explorer pane organises the output data and results into several categories. Not all of these categories may be visible as the list is updated dynamically; an item is offered only if there are data or results to display and a category is only visible if there are items offered within that category.

Some results are available in more than one Output view, for example displacements are available under Nodal results as displacement at nodes or under Beam and spring element results and 2D element results as displacements at positions on elements. Results that apply to the model as a whole are reported as Global results.

The right-click menu includes options to Specify output and to Open summary. Specify output displays the output settings dialog with the clicked item selected, giving the opportunity to further specify the Output View settings before opening the view. Open summary opens an Output view of just the summary (Maxima and Minima) of the clicked item. In the User modules branch the right-click menu also gives access to the user module management dialogs.

View explorer pane​

The View explorer pane gives access to:

  • New graphic views
  • Preferred graphic views
  • Saved graphic views
  • New output views
  • Preferred output views
  • Saved output views
  • View lists

The right-click menus also offer commands for the management of these.

Opening a new Graphic view or new Output view simply opens a Graphic view or Output view with the default settings. (These have the same affect as giving the View > New graphic view or View > New Output View menu commands, or the equivalent toolbar commands.)

Preferred views and saved views are offered only if these have previously been saved. An asterisk, “*”, is appended to Views on the tab label when some saved Graphic views or Output views are present in the current model.

Different right-click menus are displayed depending on whether the clicked item is a new view, preferred view, saved view or view list.

The right-click menu for new views includes the option to reset the settings to GSA default. Note that the Tools > Reset preferences menu command also gives the option to reset the default Graphic view and Output view settings.

The right-click menu for preferred views includes options to rename and delete the preferred view and to Delete all preferred graphic views or Delete all preferred output views, respectively. Deleting all preferred views does not reset the default view settings.

The right-click menu for saved views includes options to edit, copy, rename and delete the saved view and to Delete all saved graphic views or Delete all saved output views, respectively.

Options to create new view lists, to edit, copy and otherwise manage existing view lists are available in the right-click menu for view lists.

Preferred views, saved views and view lists can be printed directly from the right-click menu. Refer to Batch printing of views for details.

Details of how to produce preferred and saved views and view lists are given in the Working with saved views and preferred views documentation.