HP Caliper 5.3 User Guide (5900-1558, February 2011)

3 Getting Started with the HP Caliper GUI
In addition to the command-line interface, HP Caliper supports a full-featured, intuitive graphical
user interface (GUI). This chapter describes how to get started using the GUI.
For information on the command-line interface, see Chapter 2 (page 20).
What Is the HP Caliper GUI?
The GUI has the same underlying measurement technology and capabilities as the command-line
interface. With the GUI, however, you can dynamically interact with HP Caliper. Using the GUI,
you can:
• Set up and save specifications for collecting data
• Initiate measurement runs
• Graphically explore performance data after it has been collected
• Manage your collection specifications and performance databases
The HP Caliper GUI and command-line interface are part of the same product; only the user
interfaces are different. You can mix-and-match your use of the GUI and the command line. For
example, you can make a measurement and graphically explore the collected data with the GUI,
then generate a printable text report from the same data with the command line. Or, you can use
the command-line HP Caliper within your build script and later explore the performance results
using the GUI.
The HP Caliper GUI is an Eclipse RCP application. The GUI is actually a separate program that
communicates with the command-line HP Caliper. The GUI can run either natively (locally) on the
HP-UX or Linux Integrity server that HP Caliper is running on, or remotely on a Windows x86 or
Linux x86 desktop system. The GUI uses the native “look and feel” of the platform it is run on.
Although the HP Caliper GUI looks different on different systems, the functionality and operation
are identical.
Figure 4 shows an example of what the GUI looks like.
See the following for help in getting started:
• “Window Basics” (page 31)
• “Making Measurements” (page 38)
• “Exploring Performance Data” (page 39)
• “Getting Performance Tuning Advice” (page 39)
• “Getting Help” (page 40)
• “Starting the GUI” (page 40)
Window Basics
The main window of the HP Caliper GUI is divided up into views. A view is a tabbed page that
groups related tasks. These views and their icons are:
• Projects view
• Collect view
• Analyze view
• Advisor view
• Console view
What Is the HP Caliper GUI? 31