# Introduction

## What is &kst;?

&kst; is a data plotting and viewing program. Some of the features include:

- Robust plotting of live "streaming" data.

- Powerful keyboard and mouse plot manipulation.

- Powerful plugins and extensions support.

- Large selection of built-in plotting and data manipulation functions, such as histograms, equations, and power spectra.

- Color mapping and contour mapping capabilities for three-dimensional data.

- Monitoring of events and notifications support.

- Built-in filtering and curve fitting capabilities.

- Convenient command-line interface.

- Powerful graphical user interface.

## Getting Started

There are two main methods of quickly obtaining plots in &kst;. The &kst; command-line interface provides quick access to the main &kst; features, while the graphical data wizard enables intuitive fine tuning of plot and data settings.

We first need a data file. Copy and paste this simple 40-line set of data into a text file, and save it as `simpledata.dat`:

    -20 100
    -19 90.25
    -18 81
    -17 72.25
    -16 64
    -15 56.25
    -14 49
    -13 42.25
    -12 36
    -11 30.25
    -10 25
    -9 20.25
    -8 16
    -7 12.25
    -6 9
    -5 6.25
    -4 4
    -3 2.25
    -2 1
    -1 0.25
    0 0
    1 0.25
    2 1
    3 2.25
    4 4
    5 6.25
    6 9
    7 12.25
    8 16
    9 20.25
    10 25
    11 30.25
    12 36
    13 42.25
    14 49
    15 56.25
    16 64
    17 72.25
    18 81
    19 90.25
    20 100

`simpledata.dat` is an example of an ASCII data file, one of the many file types &kst; is capable of reading. For further details on file types, see Supported File Formats. To produce a simple plot using the first column (or field) of this file an x vector, and the second column as a y vector, enter the following:

``kst -x 1 -y 2 simpledata.dat``

&kst; should start with the plot displayed:

Simpledata plot
Simpledata plot

Numerous other command-line options are available—using the command-line only, plots of data can be printed directly to files, and simple data manipulation such as creation of power spectra can be performed as well. For a complete list of command-line options, see Command Line Usage and Examples.

If &kst; is started without any command-line options, a QuickStart dialog is shown by default:

The QuickStart dialog
The QuickStart dialog

The QuickStart dialog provides both a convenient facility for opening previously saved &kst; sessions and a shortcut to the data wizard. To open an existing &kst; session, either select a file from the Recent files list, or enter a path in the textbox underneath, and click Open File. Clicking the button to the right of the textbox displays a file browser dialog that can be used to graphically browse to a &kst; file. If this is your first time using &kst;, you most likely will not have any saved sessions. In this case, the data wizard can be used to quickly import data and produce plots. To start the data wizard, click the Data Wizard... button. The data wizard walks through specification of a data file, selection of fields, and selection of plot options. For detailed descriptions of the data wizard options and settings, refer to the Data Wizard section.

If you do not want the QuickStart dialog to be displayed at startup, simply uncheck Show this dialog at startup at the bottom of the QuickStart dialog. The QuickStart dialog can also be toggled by selecting Configure Kst... from the Settings menu and clicking on Show QuickStart dialog on startup.

Any plot displayed in &kst; can be manipulated. For example, dragging a rectangle anywhere within a plot will zoom in to that section of the plot. Holding Ctrl or Shift while dragging will zoom in on the x or y axis only, respectively, and tapping the arrow keys scrolls a plot. See Working with Plots and Window for more details on manipulating plots and plot layout, as well as the different mouse modes.