When you launch Contours you land on the main window. It has five regions: a title bar, a menu strip, a central chart area, a right-hand panel with tabs, and a status bar along the bottom.
Figure 1. The Contours main window. (1) Title bar and menu; (2) chart area with position traces, one colour per axis; (3) right-hand tabs — Shows, Test, Axes; (4) Shows tree view and property grid; (5) status bar with project, controller, and connection state.
Title bar
The window title always shows the name of the open project. When nothing is open, you will see just Contours.
Menus
The menu strip at the top contains three groups:
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Project — New, Open, Save, Save As, Save Backup, a Recent Projects submenu, and User Settings.
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Connections — Manage Connections and Refresh Connections.
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About — version information plus links to documentation and support.
The Myostat logo to the left of the menu is clickable and opens the Myostat website in your default browser.
Right-panel tabs
The right side of the window is a tabbed panel with three tabs. These are where almost all of your editing happens:
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Shows — tree view of every show and its profiles; create, delete, record, edit, and run shows here. Includes a video panel for the show's media (see chapter 8).
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Axes — list of axes; the selected axis's settings open in the Axis Setup window in the chart area (see chapter 6).
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Test — pick a show, choose which profiles to include, and run it in test mode. Includes a video panel for the show's media (see chapter 8).
The show's video can also be popped out into its own window, which you can resize and move to another monitor (see chapter 8).
Chart area
The large panel in the centre plots position, speed, and torque over time. Every axis gets its own colour. You can toggle which series are visible from the chart's side panel, and right-click on the chart (while editing) to insert or delete data points at the cursor. While the Axes tab is open, the chart area shows the Axis Setup window instead.
Status bar
The bar along the bottom of the window shows live status:
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The name of the current project, selected show, and selected profile.
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The acquired game controller, if one is connected (Controller Acquired: <name>).
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The connection search status (Searching, Found, Idle).
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A Connect All Axes checkbox that shows partial/full/none connection state across the project.