New Graph Features

EViews 7 graphs take a big step forward with the ability to update when underlying data change and the ability to interactively identify observation information. And that's just the start…

Auto-Updating Graphs

The most important graphics improvement in EViews 7 is the addition of auto-updating graphs.

Previously, when you created a graph object by freezing an object view, the data in the graph was fixed to the values at the time of creation. You could use EViews tools for customization, many of which were available only for graph objects, to change the look of the graph, but the underlying data could not be changed. Moreover, if the data subsequently changed, you would have to create a new graph by freezing an updated object view and then reapply any customization.

Frozen graph objects may now be linked to the series or group from which they were created. You may determine if and when a frozen graph should update as the sample or its underlying data change. Thus, you may treat a frozen graph as a snapshot of the data at the time it was frozen, as in previous versions of EViews, or allow it to update as data change.

Observation Info Display

EViews 7 allows you to closely examine points on a graph by hovering the cursor over the data point you wish to identify. If the point is inside the data portion of the graph, EViews will popup a box showing the observation label and value.

Alternately, if you hover over any point inside the graph frame, EViews will display the location of that point in the statusline located in the lower left-hand corner of your EViews window.

Updated Graph Options Dialog

EViews has always offered a large number of options for customizing your graph output, and EViews 7 offers even more. To better organize all of these options, we have completely redesigned the EViews global and object graph options dialogs so that they use an easy-to-use tree structure. You will find that most of the options are functionally the same, but they have been broken into smaller categories. Instead of tabs along the top of a dialog, we utilize a descriptive tree structure that runs along the left side of the dialog. Simply click on a tree node to display the relevant options in manageable form.

As always, if you double-click on an applicable graph-element (the legend, axes, etc.), EViews will open to the corresponding dialog tree entry.

Date Label Formatting

EViews 7 offers improved control over the formatting of your date labels. In particular, the EViews automatic date formatting setting now allows you to specify a set of guidelines for displaying dates that will be used by EViews when automatically forming labels.

Custom Observation Labels

You may now specify custom observation labels using the text or values of an alpha or numeric series. The labels in the graph are updated as the values of the alpha or series change.

Date Label Positioning

EViews 7 provides improved control over the positioning of your date labels. You may specify whether the labels are centered over period intervals, or whether they are placed at the beginning of the interval. You may change the automatic label and tick placement to label the start or center of the period.

Depending on the frequency of your graph, date labeling can be made clearer if we include a second row of labels. You may instruct EViews to utilize a second row of labels where appropriate. For example, daily data can be labeled first by month, with a second row of labels indicating the year; quarterly data can be labeled both by quarter and by year.

Grid Lines

You may now control the placement of grid lines on the date axis (observation scale) of a graph.

In addition to the previously supported "No grid lines" and "Automatic grid placement", EViews 7 now offers custom grid steps so that you may, for example, choose to override the automatic settings to place grid lines only on year boundaries.