[Bill Finzer]

Hi Kurt,

Unfortunately there is no good way to print directly from CODAP.

For graphs (and maps), you can use the Camera icon menu and export an image of the graph.

For tables you can use screen capture software.

Sorry I don’t have a better solution for you.

Bill

[Bill Finzer]

Hi Kurt,

There is a good way to do this in CODAP.

1. From the Table icon menu choose –new–.
2. Rename the AttributeName attribute (using Attribute Properties) to something meaningful, like IQ.
3. Click on the green rectangle in the first row and choose Insert Cases….
4. Enter the desired number of cases you want; e.g. 1000 and press the Insert Cases button.
5. Click on the attribute name and choose Edit Formula….
6. Enter the formula

randomNormal(100,10)

That should do it!

BTW, I think you had to leave the webinar before the very end when I did a demo of this very thing! But with sliders!

Bill

[Bill Finzer]

Hi Sonny,

My bad. I was thinking of census tracts, which we haven’t provided. Thanks for getting back to me!

So here is a link to an example using congressional districts. And the enclosed screenshot shows the 4 ways that congressional districts can be keyed.

We haven’t updated the congressional districts for the remapping in Pennsylvania. But we should. I’ll add it to our list!

Bill

Attachments:

1. 

   Congressional-boundary-keys.png
   

[Bill Finzer]

Hello Sonny,

We haven’t provided congressional district boundaries. But we could if you or someone else had a need for them. What are you wanting to do?

Bill

[Bill Finzer]

Hello Dany,

We do not have the Italian boundaries in our database. It would not be very difficult to create. If you or someone you work with were willing to do part of the work, we could add them.

BTW, I notice from Google Analytics that there is a lot of CODAP activity in Italy recently. Do you happen to know anything about that?

Bill

[Bill Finzer]

Hi Andee,

I was disappointed to find that the movable line disappears when it is exactly vertical. Darn. I’ll log that as a bug. BTW a horizontal movable line works fine.

For a vertical line you can use a Slider and Plot Value. Your formula for the plotted value will simply be the name of the slider. Then you can drag the slider to change the position of the vertical line. Not as nice as direct manipulation, of course.

I’ve included a screen shot that shows both a vertical line with position determined by a slider, and a horizontal movable line that you can grab and move directly.

Bill

 

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   Vertical-and-Horizontal-Lines.png
   

[Bill Finzer]

Hello Shauna,

The current CODAP sampler does not make this easy, more’s the pity. But it is possible, though with the collector rather than a spinner. (You may have already figured this out?) I’ll list my steps and I’ll include a link to the document that has the result.

1. Add the Sampler plugin (of course)
2. With the Table tool, make a <new> dataset.
3. Click on the green rectangle on the far left of this table and choose New Cases.
4. Enter 200 and press the New Cases button.
5. You could hand enter 191 “yes” values and 9 “no” values, but it’s simpler to use the formula: if(caseIndex<191,”yes”,”no”)
6. In the Sampler, choose the Collector device.
7. Fill in the number of items and samples you want and press Start.

Whew! Sure hope we get to continue Sampler development soon!

Here is a link to a worked out example.

[Bill Finzer]

Hello Zac,

Thanks for this post. Currently there is no way to control dot size in either maps or graphs. We’ve thought about providing this capability, and it helps to know that there’s someone out there who would like it! I’ve boosted its priority in our list of requested features.

Bill

[Bill Finzer]

Hi Sue,

Yeah, that bug crept into the current release. But it’s fixed for the next release.

Thanks for reporting it. We appreciate hearing about bugs even if we already know about them.

Bill

[Bill Finzer]

Hi Emily,

I’m not sure about a glossary, but could it be this Help Page?

Bill

[Bill Finzer]

Hi Andee and Traci,

You’re definitely making me reconsider the design decision to list categories on the y-axis from top to bottom. Traci’s example of the “nonsensical” behavior of the reordering that occurs when switching back and forth from numeric to categorical is particularly persuasive. Also, I have to remind myself that the decision in Fathom was based on the presence of a summary table, which we do not have in CODAP.

So I’ll post the story in Pivotal Tracker, our bug and feature tracking system.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Bill

[Bill Finzer]

There are no pending requests for histograms, but there is always the possibility that such a request will come from a collaborator with funds to pay for its development.

BTW, if you can reasonably treat the numeric variable as categorical, then you can turn the dot chart into a bar chart, which has a count axis.

[Bill Finzer]

Hi Andee,

The main reason is pedagogical. Having a count axis can distract students from the shape of the distribution which is generally what we want them to focus on.

Another reason is that the number of dots in a stack is so dependent on the size of the dots and the resolution along the axis. I suppose there may be situations in which this number is useful, but I’ve never encountered one that made me think it was worth adding the widgetry and corresponding distraction. Interestingly, in 5 years of collaboration with projects that could have asked for it, not one has done so.

BTW Fathom doesn’t show a count axis. (TinkerPlots does.) But, of course, in Fathom you can get a histogram with count axis.

Bill

[Bill Finzer]

Hi Andrew,

When you get to the Shared view: disabled dialog box, is there an ENABLE SHARING button as shown in the screen capture enclosed here?

If so, press that button. If not, can you share a screen capture of what you’re seeing?

Bill

Attachments:

1. 

   Shared.png
   

[Bill Finzer]

Hi Traci,

Thanks for your thoughtful response. I can supply the reasoning by which we came to the decision to order a categorical y-axis from “low” to “high” starting at the top instead of the bottom.

It came about 15 years or so ago working on Fathom, CODAP’s predecessor. In Fathom there is a summary table that lists an attribute’s categories as shown in the accompanying screenshot. In the table, it made sense, if there were an ordinality to the categories to list them from top to bottom. Having a different order when the categories were listed on the y-axis was untenable.

In CODAP we don’t (yet) have a summary table. But I think an argument can still be made for the current behavior in that we read (at least in English) from left to right and then from top to bottom. We can view the categories listed on the y-axis as a list, and, in fact, making such a graph is a useful way to view all the categories (provided there aren’t way too many!).

So that’s the story of why categories are ordered left to right or top to bottom. Numerical axes have an origin at the lower left.

I welcome comments from other participants in this forum.

Bill

Attachments:

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   table.png
   

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