View source for Trace Compass/Design Documents/Aligned x axis

The goal is to have a set of views that are aligned on the same (common) X-axis (timeline)

= Other products =

First we had a quick look at other products that use this approach, including:
* ARM DS-5
* Instruments (Apple)
* Audacity
* Adobe Premiere
* Intel VTune
* YourKit Java Profiler
* ANTS performance profiler
* Windows Performance Analyzer
* NVIDIA Nsight

== Observations ==

* Having the views closer to each other makes it more obvious that they are connected to the same time axis (DS-5, Instruments). In comparison, Windows Performance Analyzer has bigger gaps and it's less obvious.
* A lot of products place the time axis at the top. This works well in TMF as well (Control Flow view, etc).
* ANTS has an interesting way of displaying the overall histogram: over the axis. Something to think about if we were to split the partial histogram and the global histogram in two distinct controls. The partial history could then be axis-aligned and not the global one.
* Most of the other products make an effort to use a well defined palette of  colors which results in a more professional look. This could be done as a separate effort of the combined X axis.
* Some products (WPA, Premiere, Nsight, Vtune, DS-5) put all the views under a single “document” tab. This is something that could be very useful for TMF because there would never be “unrelated” views opened. This would be implemented as an editor in Eclipse.

= Proposals =

== Proposal 1: Synched-Sash Views ==
[[Image:X-axis-alignment-synched-sash.png]]

* Synchronize the vertical sash of all “time enabled” views
* Pros:
** Should be relatively simple to implement
** Could be phase 1 of a bigger change
* Cons:
** A lot of space is used by the tabs and toolbars, duplicated axis
** Because of the views are a bit far apart, it might not be as obvious that they are aligned and it might be harder for the eye to correlate them together