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Overview

Annotation

Lines with the first character as '#' are annotations. Annotations are usually at the beginning of a dataset; however if desired, annotation lines can be placed anywhere in a dataset.

Modifiers

Pairs usually start with '!', and are separated by a single 'tab' character; KA pairs are used to specify or change certain default settings / behavior of a dataset, for example:

  • to set the title or legend
  • to change the width, height or opacity of the dataset
  • in some cases, the attribute part of a KA-pair is optional.

Here are a list of KA-pairs common to all datasets; dataset-specific KA-pairs will be introduced later.

Key (case insensitive) Value Description
!Groups or !LegendText comma separated text Legend texts; for example 'group_a,group_b,group_c'
!LegendStyle or !Style rect or circle or star shapes to be plotted before the legend texts; default = rect
!LegendColors or !Colors comma separated color codes or names colors to be applied to the shapes specified by LegendStyle; for example 'red,green,yellow' ; note the number of colors should match the number of legend fields
!Title or !Legend text title of the legend; default = name of the dataset
!ShowLegends 0 or 1 0 : hide legends; 1 : show legends
!opacity float number between 0 to 1 opacity of the dataset
!PlotWidth integer > 0 pixel width of the dataset on canvas

Data

Data are usually tab-delimited three-column texts; the first two columns are often mandatory, the third one is often optional.

first column: the location

The first column dictates where the data to be plotted. It usually contains the name of a leaf node, or two leaf names separated by a ','.

  • one single leaf name dictates that the data will be plotted on / next to / under the leaf or the branch connecting directly to the leaf node
  • two leaf names, on the hand, dictates that the data will be displayed on the branch representing the last common ancestor of the two leaf nodes For example:
  • chicken
  • mouse,human
second column: data to be displayed

in bar plots, the data are the numbers representing the widths of the bars. see more examples in each of the datasets

third column: optional commands to change the default behavior of the input

see the examples in each of the datasets.

Legends