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exelban / stats

macOS system monitor in your menu bar
MIT License
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[Enhancement] Network graph widget enhancements proposal #844

Closed bouscram closed 2 years ago

bouscram commented 2 years ago

Hi. I like to use the network graph, but I am disturbed by the "auto-scale" of the current implementation. Would it be possible to have a setting to use a fixed value (maybe based on the interface speed, or user selectable)? Another change would be to have the possibility to use a logarithmic scale for the graph (as in MenuMeters).

exelban commented 2 years ago

Hi. I'm not sure I understand correctly. There is one way of how the chart calling works now. It's trying to fit the values to the view. If you want to implement a more complex way to visualize the data, PRs are welcome. I'm not sure I will find a time to do this.

bouscram commented 2 years ago

My first request would be the possibility for the network graph to use a constant scale, not a dynamic one as it is today. Other visualisations would be more complex and a "nice to have" only...

exelban commented 2 years ago

How it's possible to have a constant scale?

bouscram commented 2 years ago

What I mean is that the max height of the curve is predefined and selectable (for example 100% solid = 1Gbps), instead of adapting itself to the max visible value. With the current behaviour, it's impossible be see if the trafic is high or low by just looking at the curve. On the example below, is the spike 1 Gbps or 10 Kps ? image

exelban commented 2 years ago

Ok, so imagine that the scale will be predefined: 100% = 1Gbps. It means that I will never see any value on the chart. Because the value in the range of 1-10 Mbps will soo small to visualize.

For now, there is no predefined scale. And the 100% is the max value that was in the selected time range,

bouscram commented 2 years ago

Clearly I know that small values won't be visible, but what I like this kind of widget for is to see abnormal values (= large traffic when I don't expect any) at a glance. Maybe several max values could be used, a the user's choice.

To cope for that, MenuMeters (which I used for years before mainly switching to Stats) has two setting, one for the range and one for the display type :

image image

Please consider such changes for future release. I guess the 1st is very easy, but the 2nd needs changes in the way the graph is calculated.

exelban commented 2 years ago

Hi. I'm not sure I see a reason for this. But still, I understand that someone needs this type of scaling. I will leave this ticket open. Maybe someone would like to implement this feature.

victor-marino commented 10 months ago

Hi.

I believe this issue was closed by mistake.

The linked commit simply matches the scale for the upload and download speeds, but those scales are still set dynamically by the app instead of allowing us to set the maximum values.

I think what @bouscram was asking for (and I second this petition) is adding the option to set the scale of the network chart manually, both in the status bar and the expanded widget chart.

This option is present in most traffic monitor apps I have used, as the chart will otherwise look like this when there's only background traffic involved: traffic_chart

Furthermore, the scale keeps changing constantly not based on our traffic history, but on the time range that is visible in the chart at any given moment. So if we make a large download the scale will adapt to, say 1 Gbps maximum speed. But after a few seconds, when that traffic spike leaves the chart, the scale will suddenly go back to measure Kbps.

This is of course dependant on user preference, but as a network engineer, for me it makes a lot more sense to adjust the scale so that I just see a "flat line" when there's only background traffic. That way, the chart will only draw my attention when there's actual, significant traffic going on. This also works nicely as an "alert" whenever an app is downloading stuff in the background without our knowledge.

Given each person will have different preferences and different broadband speeds at home, I think the easiest way to accomplish this is to just add a "manual scale" option, that then allows the user to enter the desired maximum values.

Could you please consider reopening this issue?

victor-marino commented 10 months ago

Hi again.

Even though I've never, ever developed for MacOS or used Swift, I decided to give this a try as I'd love to see this feature implemented.

Initial PR here: https://github.com/exelban/stats/pull/1746