To Make the Window Active Click on Its Title Bar

Data Desk Information

Active Window

The active window is the frontmost window whose title bar is highlighted. All actions and commands are reflected in the active window.

To make the window active click on its title bar.

Windows

Layout Windows

Layout windows in Data Desk are an effective place to record the progress of your analysis, to create presentations of your data, and to design figures that combine plots, tables, and text for use in other programs.

To create a layout window, choose {Data New} Layout.

You can drag icons of open result windows into the Layout window to position them there. Any picture in a Layout window can recall its source window. Double-click on a picture in a layout to locate and open its original window.

You can type or paste text in the layout window. When a layout window is frontmost, pressing any letter, number, or symbol key on the keyboard or pasting text creates a text editing area within the layout window.

Chapter 14 of “Learning Data Analysis with Data Desk” discusses layout windows in detail.

Icons on the Desktop

Action Folder

The Action folder is located inside the File Cabinet and holds the icons of Action programs.

Data Folder

The Data folder is located inside the File Cabinet and holds data relations. All data relations are placed inside the Data folder. You can move a data relation into any other folder or onto the Data Desk desktop.

Derived Folder

The Derived folder is located inside the File Cabinet and holds the icons of any derived variables that do not fit into the data relation from which it was built. For example, a derived variable holding the expression Sum('varname') returns only one value and, therefore, does not fit in the same relation as 'varname'.

File Cabinet

The File Cabinet is an icon located in the top right corner of the Data Desk desktop. It holds the Data folder, Results folder, Derived folder, Action folder and Slide folder.

Results Folder

The Results folder is located inside the File Cabinet and stores the icons of all plots, tables and analyses in order in which they were created. Because each Data Desk result object can be modified, updated, or used as a template for another analysis, the Results folder provides a more direct record of your work as well as a convenient way to try slightly different alternatives.

Double click on any icon in the Results folder to open the analysis or plot.

Any folder can be designated the Results folder, so you may want to have separate Results folders for different analysis paths. To designate a folder as a new Results folder, click the new folder's icon (or the icon alias in the folder's window title bar) and choose {Special Results Log} Assign.

Slide Folder

The Slide folder is located inside the File Cabinet and stores the slide show icons. The order of the slides in the Slide folder determines the order of the slides in the slide show.

Trash

To discard a variable, drag its icon to the Trash. You can retrieve the variable by opening the trash icon and dragging it back out. The {Special} Empty Trash command finally discards variables placed in the Trash. The Data Desk Trash icon looks different from the Microsoft Windows’ Recycle Bin or the Macintosh Finder’s trash icon. If you resize the Data Desk desktop on a Mac, you can see both trash icons. You can discard a Data Desk icon only in the Data Desk Trash. If the Trash doesn’t accept an icon, check that you have dragged the icon to Data Desk’s Trash icon and not the operating system’s trash icon.

Datafile

Datafiles store data between work sessions on Data Desk. You can start Data Desk by opening a Data Desk datafile. Datafiles contain icons that represent objects such as variables, displays, and tables.

When you quit/exit Data Desk, you can save the entire state of your analysis — including all data and results — in a datafile. Datafiles can be copied to other disks, duplicated, renamed, or discarded.

To open a Data Desk datafile or an ASCII file from within Data Desk, choose {File} Open Datafile...

If you would like to combine the data from an ASCII file or the data and results from an existing Data Desk file, with a currently open datafile, choose {File} Import.... Data Desk will open the imported file and place all the data and results into a new folder in the Results folder.

The {File} New Datafile command closes the current datafile and creates a new, empty datafile named Untitled.

Folder

When using a small number of variables, you may want to arrange them in a single icon window and select them as needed. For more complex analyses or larger collections of data, it is better to organize variables into groups so that you can deal with them easily.

Several icons may belong together because they describe the same individuals or circumstances, because they contain related quantities, because you plan to use them together in an analysis, or because you want to group them to clean up the Data Desk desktop. In Data Desk, icons can be grouped into folders for any of these reasons.

Folders keep the desktop uncluttered by providing a convenient way to group collections of icons. You may collect any icons — whatever the reason for grouping them — into a folder. Moreover, folders can contain other folders. For example, a folder of economic indicators might include a smaller folder of energy-related variables along with general variables like GNP.

Data Desk’s folders keep icons in a strict left-to-right order. It is always clear which item is the first (the leftmost), which is the second, and so on. This order can be important to the statistics and display operations in Data Desk. So a second reason for using folders is to keep variables in a particular order.

Folders also provide a convenient way to manipulate groups of variables. They can simplify advanced analyses by providing a way to group variables. When you select a folder’s icon, Data Desk selects all the icons it contains in left-to-right order.

To create a new folder choose the {Data New} Folder command and provide a name. Typing CtrlN (command-N on Mac) creates a new folder as well. The new folder is added to the frontmost icon window on the right.

If there are too many icons to fit in the window, its scroll bar across the bottom can move them left and right. If you drag a selection rectangle off the side of a folder, the icons automatically scroll away from you and continue the selection. You can drag the icons to new positions in the window, on the desktop, or to other folders.

Icons dragged into the icon of a folder are appended to the right of the icons in the folder. The folder icon highlights when the dragged icon is over it. Release the mouse button to drop the dragged icons into the folder. You can drop icons into a closed folder icon or into the shaded icon of an open folder.

HyperView menus

Data Desk’s windows offer HyperView menus that suggest related plots or analyses. HyperView menus have a built-in knowledge of how statistics methods work together so they can place related analysis steps at your fingertips. A window’s HyperView menu pops up when you press the arrow at the left side of the window’s title bar. Other HyperView menus are attached to parts of the window. When the mouse cursor changes to a pointer hand, it is over a HyperView menu; press the mouse button to pop up the menu.

Most Data Desk results windows suggest additional or alternative analyses or plots. These might be checks on the underlying assumptions of a procedure (such as a histogram to check how a variable is distributed) or they might be naturally related analyses (a frequency breakdown to provide the counts and percentages graphed in a pie chart). For example, when you press the mouse button over an axis label in a scatterplot, the HyperView menu that pops up offers to locate the icon, make a histogram, or make a normal probability plot of the variable plotted on the axis. If you press the mouse button over a correlation coefficient in a correlation table, the HyperView menu suggests a scatterplot of the underlying variables.

Global HyperView menus

Global HyperView menus are attached to the window as a whole. Most Data Desk windows have a submenu arrow located in the upper left corner of the title bar next to the close box. The HyperView menu attached to that arrow suggests general actions related to the analysis or display in the window.

Context-Sensitive HyperView menus

Context-Sensitive HyperView menus are attached to specific parts of the plot or table and suggest analyses or plots related to those parts.

These HyperView menus can be more context-specific than global HyperView menus. In plots, for example, the HyperView menu attached to the axis labels usually offer to locate the icon of the displayed variable or to show it in a simple one-variable display, such as a histogram. In most tables, the HyperView menu attached to the test statistic usually offers a display to check if the assumptions are valid.

Icon

Each of the principal objects that Data Desk works with or produces is represented on the desktop by an icon. You can tell what kind of object you have by what its icon looks like.

To do anything with an icon you must first select it by moving the tip of the cursor’s arrow on top of the icon and clicking. Selected icons highlight. To move an icon, click on it and drag. You can move several icons by selecting them all and then dragging any one of them. When you drag an icon to the right or left edge of an icon window, the icons in the window scroll to reveal any additional icons located beyond that edge of the window. The speed of scrolling increases as you get closer to the edge of the window. To avoid scrolling, drag icons off the top or bottom of their windows or drag them rapidly across the right or left edge. This feature makes it easier to manage windows with many icons. We recommend that you use folders to group icons logically when there are many icons in a window.

The icons need not be in the same window. You may place icons on the Data Desk desktop, but it is usually more convenient to leave them in the windows that ordinarily hold them.

Icons provide a convenient place to put away data, plots, and analyses so that they don’t clutter the screen but are still readily available. Whenever you close a window it will close into an icon. Whenever you open an icon, it will open into a window. To open an icon, select it and choose Open from the Data menu, or double-click on it.

When an icon is open to show its window, the icon appears shaded. Shaded icons are still active; you can move them, discard them, and use them as you would any other icon.

To rename an icon, click on its current name and edit it as you would any text. Pressing the Tab key selects the name of the next icon to the right in the same window. When you tab off the right edge of the icons’ window, the icons scroll to stay in view.

Icon Alias

The box that holds a picture of a small document on the right of every Data Desk window’s title bar is a miniature icon that behaves like the window’s icon. You can select the window’s icon by clicking on the icon alias. Double-clicking on the icon alias locates the window’s icon, selects it and makes it visible on the desktop.

Icon Window

Some Data Desk windows, like data folders and the Results folder, contain icons. These are called icon windows.

Preferences

Data Desk Preferences are stored in the Preferences folder located in your System folder. To change Data Desk preferences, choose Preferences... from the Edit menu.

The first part of the preferences file allows you to change the functionality of the Enter and Return keys.

The Category Warning dialog warns you if you request a category-based plot or table, like a bar chart or contingency table, for a variable that has more categories than specified the Preferences dialog. The check protects from accidentally specifying a continuous variable for these commands. See Section 16.3 for more information.

Close Box on Right results in the close box being placed in the far upper right corner of all Data Desk windows instead of the far upper left corner. On Mac, the default setting for this preference is off. On windows the default setting is on.

Blue Title Bars changes the appearance of each window's title bar from center justified with horizontal gray lines for decoration to left justified with a blue tint for decoration. On Mac, the default setting for this preference is off. On windows the default setting is on.

Put Derived with Relation tells Data Desk to place new derived variables in the same relation as their argument variables. If this option is not selected, derived variables are placed in the Derived folder in the File Cabinet.

Faster Save speeds the time and decreases the memory requirements for saving files. It does this by writing directly into the current file during the save process. If a hardware failure occurs during the Faster Save, the file could become damaged. The default save writes a completely new file, which takes longer and requires more memory, but protects the original datafile from damage due to hardware failures. This preference has no effect on Windows.

Auto Set Plot Tool causes Data Desk to select an appropriate default plot tool each time a new plot is opened. For example, when a rotating plot is opened, the rotation hand is automatically selected because that is the tool most likely to be useful. If this option is not selected, the active plot tool will not change until you choose a new one.

Small Default Plot Symbol sets the plot symbols to a dot (.) instead of a standard plus symbol () for data which is pasted, imported or typed in.

Zoom sets the speed of the opening and closing of all windows. Window zooming is helpful because the outline of the zoom allows you to identify the location of the window that holds the icon that is being closed. The default setting is Medium.

Relation

Most datasets are rectangular. There are variables(usually represented as columns) and cases (usually represented as rows). Each case has a value recorded for each variable. The recorded value may be a value defined as “missing” rather than a number or a category name. Because each case has a value for each variable and each variable has a value at each case, the array of data can be shown as a rectangular table of values .

Data analyses typically relate two or more variables to each other. However, the variables must hold data for the same cases in the same order. If a variable recording median education in each of the 50 states was arranged in alphabetical order, it would make no sense to plot it against a variable holding median income in each state that was ordered from west to east, or against a variable that recorded income by region rather than by state.

This rectangular structure is known in database theory as a relation, and Data Desk adopts this terminology. Formally, each row in a relation must be unique. Accordingly, Data Desk assigns a unique case number to each row in order from top to bottom.

If your dataset is a standard rectangular data table, calling it a relation changes nothing. However, if your data include variables recorded for several relations, you will find that Data Desk’s relational data management abilities let you structure, enter, and work with your data in more natural ways.

For most datasets, Data Desk uses relations to make your life easier automatically. For example, if your data form a simple relation, Data Desk automatically keeps cases aligned in your variables. Thus, if you cut a case out of one variable, Data Desk offers to delete that case from all variables in the relation to preserve your ability to analyze the variables together.

Most analyses that deal with more than one variable make sense only when the variables are in the same relation. You cannot combine variables from two different relations in the same plot or calculation, but Data Desk provides ways to refer from one relation to another so that the resulting variables are properly matched.