
Frequent Asked Question and Anwser:

1, Why rectangles, states, are NOT properly nested sometimes ?  It seems
   They are nested correctly in some frames but not always.  Also, the 
   incorrect nesting is sometimes fixed by doing zoom in/out.   In some
   occasions, the incorrect nesting is displayed across an invisible
   vertical line during scrolling.

   All these symptoms can be explained if the states are NOT arranged
   strictly in endtime order in the slog2 file.  Contact your TRACE-API
   implementator for further support on this issue. ( TRACE-API is the
   interface used to create the SLOG-2 file ).  To make sure that
   all drawables inside the slog2 file is arranged in correct endtime
   order is to run traceTOslog2( or its variant like rlogTOslog2..)
   on the original trace with option -tc which turns on the time order
   checking code.

2, Why the color of some states in Timeline window is different from
   those in Legend window ?

   SLOG-2 allows transparency in defining color of any drawables.
   If the TRACE-API implementation that you use to generate SLOG-2 file
   uses transparency (instead of using opaque), the effect is that when
   there are several states nested together, the color of the state  
   on top of other states may have altered because of mixing of
   alpha channel of state's color with that of others.  This effect
   can be easily seen when the background is black, i.e. all states 
   may appear to be darker.
   
3, How can launch Jumpshot-4 in native Windows enviroment ?

   First install Java2 runtime enviroment on Windows, i.e. jre 1.2.2 to 1.4.2
   or up, then launch Jumpshot-4 in native Windows environment by clicking
   on the lib/jumpshot_launcher.jar.  The Java Virtual Machine's launch 
   parameters can be modified in $HOME/.jumpshot_launcher.conf.

4, When I view my logfile in Jumpshot-4, I see there are legend entries named
   as UnknownType-INDEX.  What do these legends stand for ?

   Legends that are named as UnknownType-INDEX are Category of drawables
   that are undefined in the logfile.  If it is a clog converted slog2 file,
   the unknown categories could correspond to MPI states if MPI_Finalize()
   did not exit/finish correctly during profiling.  If you do see all the
   MPI categories defined in the Legend window, then the unknown categories
   would most likely refer to the user-defined states whose definitions
   are supplied in the user code.

5, The exclusion ratios reported by Jumpshot or SLOG-2 printing program 
   for large SLOG-2 file seem to be less than what it should be ?

   The exclusion ratio computed in SLOG-2 is less than or equal to what
   it should be. This artifact is due to the fact that preview state is
   used in the determination of exclusion region. The nesting level of
   preview state is approximate by construction. This approximate nature
   of the preview state may exclude more region in the enclosing state than
   what the appropriate shares of its enclosed states should be.
   Nevertheless, even with this limitation, the innermost state's exclusion
   ratio is still correct.
