Selections

The concept of a MyARM-Manager Selection defines the way the user can browse and filter transaction measurements in the configured data sink (database). Currently the Definition and Tree selections are provided by the MyARM-Manager which are described in detail in the following sections.

Both selections are divided into a left part (Definition-Filter, Attribute-Filter and Add-Views) which is called Selector, where the user can select filtering criteria and a right part (Instance-View) where the MyARM-Manager provides the result after the filter criteria where applied.

Figure: The manager window layout

Within the left part both selections use an application and transaction definition tree (Definition-Filter) to select the transaction types of interest. This tree is described in the following section.

The Attribute-Filter can be used to fine-tune the filter criteria to show only the relevant transaction measurements. A detailed description of the Attribute-Filter can be found in section Filtering.

On the right part a table or tree view showing the currently selected trasnaction instances is opened by default. The user can open additional views by pressing one of the Add view-buttons in the Add-Views area. This is described in detail in the Views chapter.

Application and transaction definition tree

The application and transaction definition tree on the left side of the main window shows all known application and transaction definitions (types) stored in the configured database. On the first tree level only application definitions are shown, the transaction definitions are below their respective application definitions. The number of instances can be viewed just besides the name of the definition. Currently only transaction definitions can be selected or de-selected by clicking on it once with the left mouse button.

Once the user selected a transaction definition all transaction instances are loaded from the database and shown in the view part on the right side of the main window. A deselection of a selected transaction will release all measurements within the views section of the main window.

Additional information

If tool tips are enabled in the preference Definition tooltip they are used to display additional information like application or transaction identity properties. Also if the application or transaction definition name does not fit in the column the complete application or transaction name will be displayed as a tool tip.

Application and transaction definitions can have some additional information associated. This is called Identity-Properties within the ARM standard. These identity properties can be displayed as a tool tip if the mouse pointer is positioned over the number column of the appropiate application or transaction definition as shown in "Apache HTTPd application identity property"

Figure: Apache HTTPd application identity property	Figure: PyCDDB:GenerateOutput complete name
Figures: Additional information as tool tips

If an application or transaction name cannot be shown completely within the tree view (which is indicated by the ellipsis '...') the complete name is shown as a tool tip if the mouse pointer is positioned over the name as shown in "PyCDDB:GenerateOutput complete name".

Key bindings

The following key bindings can be used to navigate through the application and transaction definition tree:

Key	Description
and	keys can be used to navigation through the tree. The currently item in focus will be rendered in small rubber band
and	keys can be used to navigation through the tree page by page
	key expands the sub-tree of the item in focus
	key collaps the sub-tree of the item in focus
	same as cursor right key
	same as cursor left key
	selects or deselects the item in focus

Table: Selection tree navigation via keyboard

Filtering the definition tree (New since "1.3.x.4")

Within large environments it is often usual that there are many different application and transaction definitions in the database.

Figure: Wildcard pattern case insensitive	Figure: Wildcard pattern case sensitive
Figures: Different filter possibilities of the application and transaction definition tree

To reduce the number of shown transaction definitions the MyARM-Manager supports wildcard filtering of transaction definition names as shown in "Filter possibilities" . "Case insensitive charater class wildcard" shows all transaction definition beginning with either 'C' 'D' 'H' 'F'or 'G'chararters in lower or upper case. "Case sensitive charater class wildcard" on the other side shows transaction definitions with only upper case.

The wildcard pattern matching supports the following wildcards:

c

Any character represents itself apart from those mentioned below. Thus c matches the character c.

?

This matches any single character.

*

This matches zero or more of any characters.

...

Sets of characters can be represented in square brackets. Within the character class, like outside, backslash has no special meaning.

On the right side of the transaction filter wildcard input area a down arrow button provides a simple menu to toggle between case insensitive and case sensitive wildcard matching.

Sorting the definition tree

Besides filtering of the application and transaction definition tree it can also be sorted by clicking on the column header fields named Name and No of the tree view. A small arrow on the right side of the header column indicates the sorting direction and which column is currently sorted. Sorted by definition names is shown in "Application and transaction definition tree items sorted by name" . Note that any item within its own level is sorted by the current sort criteria.

Figure: Names sorted ascending	Figure: Names sorted descending
Figures: Application and transaction definition tree items sorted by name

In "Application and transaction definition tree items sorted by number of instances" all items are sorted by the number of their instances stored in the database.

Figure: Number of instances sorted ascending	Figure: Number of instances sorted descending
Figures: Application and transaction definition tree items sorted by number of instances

Transaction database selection (New since "1.3.x.4")

If the used database supports multiple transaction databases (such as MySQL MyARM integration) and more than one transaction database exists a pull down menu is presented to select the transaction database. In "Transaction database selection example" the screenshot on the left side shows transaction measurements of the myarm.info web-server and on the right side transaction measurements of the 26th may 2010 which has no measurements for the shown transaction definitions.

Figure: Transaction database of myarm.info measurements	Figure: Transaction database of 26th of may
Figures: Transaction database selection example