How Graph Axis Components Map to Axes in the Graph User Interface

The default user interface for a Java-client graph presents options for the axes. These options include whether to display a title for the axis, the text for the title, the display of tick labels, and so on. There are two different panels for these options:

Because both the ordinal axis and the X-axis are horizontal axes (on vertically oriented graphs), end users tend to think of them both as X-axes. To simplify the task of setting options for these axes, the default user interface for the graph calls them both X-axes, to match the end users' mental model.

Using the term X-axis for both the X1Axis and the O1Axis is easier for end users, but it does mean that application developers must map the end-user's term X-axis to the appropriate graph component.

In the following graph types, the end-user's X-axis maps to the O1Axis and uses the GroupAxis user-interface panel:

In the following graph types, the end-user's X-axis maps to the X1Axis and uses the ValueAxis user-interface panel: