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Graph Settings
- Line type
- Smoothed trend swath
- Moving average
- Hide the numbers on the y-axis of the graph
- x-min & x-max
- y-min & y-max
The Graph Settings control a few aesthetic details of your graph. Changing these will not affect your goal in any way, so they can't derail you. Feel free to experiment as much as you want with them: the effects are purely cosmetic, and can be instantly reversed if you decide they're not helpful. You can find this section near the bottom of the Settings tab below the graph.
Line type
This controls how each day's datapoint is connected on your graph. You have three options:
- steppy: if you want to clearly see how much you did on a given day
- rosy: a smoother transition between days (and does various fanciness in the case of nonmonotone data); this can help to show the more general trend, rather than your progress on a given day
- none: if you don't need no stinkin' lines
Smoothed trend swath
If this option is checked, Beeminder will plot a purple (previously turquoise-ish) swath that represents a smoothed trendline fit of your data, in addition to any other enabled graph features. It can be used alongside steppy/rosy/none and the moving average, and doesn't override them.
Moving average
If this option is checked, Beeminder will plot a purple line that represents the moving average of your data, in addition to your line type and the purple swath (if enabled). The graph below has a line type of none and the moving average enabled to highlight the overall trend, rather than the specific datapoints each day. The moving average can be used alongside steppy/rosy/none and the purple swath.
Hide the numbers on the y-axis of the graph
If this option is checked, Beeminder will draw your graph with no y-axis increments labeled. This is nice when you want to share your weight goal with people without revealing what you weigh (ain't nobody's business but yours!), for example, or share your progress toward inbox zero without revealing that you have 12,000 unread emails to your judgemental inbox zero addict friends and acquaintances.
x-min & x-max
Use these fields to set the earliest and latest dates shown on the graph. If nothing is entered in these fields, x-min defaults to the start date of your goal, while x-max defaults to two weeks from today.
x-min is particularly useful because it can be used to "reset" the graph by hiding all previous data. This can give you the feeling of a fresh start, without having to archive the goal, create a new one, or do a huge batch of data deletion (by the way, deleting data won't really work to start fresh — you'll just derail your goal a bunch!).You can set the x-min to a specific date, or to a variety of relative dates: a week ago, two weeks ago, etc. This creates a rolling window so the data displayed is always more recent, rather than being stuck on a specific date or right back at the start of your goal.
When you restart your goal from the archived state, we usually automatically set the x-min to the current date. If you want to see all your past data, you can just clear the field and everything will be displayed again!
One note: x-min can't be set to a future date, and x-max cannot be set to a past date (according to the goal's internal clock, so this may not match your calendar day if you have an early or late deadline). Doing this will cause an error.
y-min & y-max
Use these fields to set the highest and lowest values shown on the graph. The defaults are determined by your datapoints. These fields are used much less often than x-min and x-max are, but can be handy if you only want to show your progress in a specific range of data!
Keywords: goal restart behaviour, internally x-min and x-max are "tmin" and "tmax" and y-min and y-max are "vmin" and "vmax", previously turquoise swath and polynomial fit