# Experiment with plt5.m

The easiest way to start learning about plt is to start the sample script plt5.m.
Just type plt5 at the command prompt.
(If you installed plt manually instead of using the toolbox and you did not add plt\demo to the path then you will have to cd to the demo folder before typing the plt5 command.)
A plot such as this will appear on your screen. This simple script plots five traces. Note that the last trace (Line 5) is plotted on the right hand axis. Experiment by trying the following:

• | Click on all the objects in the plt window including the trace IDs.
• | Try that again with the right mouse button (which usually does something different).
• | Click and drag on the x and y axes tick labels (again ... try both left and right buttons)
• | Left or right click and drag in the plot area. (On and off the traces do different things).
• | Hold down both mouse buttons in the plot area and drag (creates an expansion box).

Don't be alarmed that this figure window looks so different from what you are used to with Matlab's native plot. Under the hood, plt and plot use the same fundamental objects. The dark plot background and the missing menu and toolbar are the starkest visual differences between the two. But you will soon learn how easy it is to change the color scheme back to what you are used to and also some reasons why you may not want to do that (at least for data exploration). Because of plt's rich feature set, the menu bar and toolbar are less useful but rest assured that they are easy to bring up if you want them. (Just click on the "Menu" tag to get the Menu Bar and go to the View menu to enable the toolbar.) You can also choose to have the Menu Bar appear by default.
After experimenting with plt5, expand on what you have learned by:

- Using plt with some data you are currently working with. Type plt(x,y) just as you would with Matlab's plot routine.
- Use the plt workspace plotter by typing plt with no arguments. Then you can interactively select the variables you wish to plot.
- Run the other programming examples. (demoplt.m sequences through all the examples.)
- Explore the topics in "Using the plt window" and "Programming with plt " from the plt help home page.