From 483926a283e118590da3f9ecfa75a8a4d62143ce Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>
Date: Wed, 1 Dec 2021 07:15:11 +0100
Subject: Merging upstream version 1.32.0.

Signed-off-by: Daniel Baumann <daniel.baumann@progress-linux.org>
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+---
+title: "Visualization date and time controls"
+description: "Netdata's dashboard features powerful date visualization controls that include a time control (play, pause, force play), a timezone selector and a rich date and timeframe selector, with useful defaults and rich customization, to help you narrow your focus when troubleshooting issues or anomalies."
+type: how-to
+custom_edit_url: https://github.com/netdata/netdata/edit/master/docs/dashboard/visualization-date-and-time-controls.mdx
+---
+
+# Visualization date and time controls
+
+## Date and time selector
+
+### Pick timeframes to visualize
+
+While [panning through time and zooming in/out](/docs/dashboard/interact-charts.mdx) from charts it is helpful when
+you're looking a recent history, or want to do granular troubleshooting, what if you want to see metrics from 6 hours
+ago? Or 6 days?
+
+Netdata's dashboard features a **timeframe selector** to help you visualize specific timeframes in a few helpful ways.
+By default, it shows a certain number of minutes of historical metrics based on the your browser's viewport to ensure
+it's always showing per-second granularity.
+
+#### Open the timeframe selector
+
+To visualize a new timeframe, you need to open the picker, which appears just above the menu, near the top-right cover
+of the dashboard.
+
+![The timeframe selector in the local Agent
+dashboard](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1153921/101507784-2c585080-3934-11eb-9d6e-eff30b8553e4.png)
+
+The **Clear** button resets the dashboard back to its default state based on your browser viewport, and **Apply** closes
+the picker and shifts all charts to the selected timeframe.
+
+#### Use the Quick Selector
+
+Click any of the following options in the **Quick Selector** to choose a commonly-used timeframe.
+
+- Last 5 minutes
+- Last 15 minutes
+- Last 2 hours
+- Last 6 hours
+- Last 12 hours
+
+Click **Apply** to see metrics from your selected timeframe.
+
+#### Choose a specific interval
+
+Beneath the Quick Selector is an input field and dropdown you use in combination to select a specific timeframe of
+minutes, hours, days, or months. Enter a number and choose the appropriate unit of time, then click **Apply**.
+
+#### Choose multiple days
+
+Use the calendar to select multiple days. Click on a date to begin the timeframe selection, then an ending date. The
+timeframe begins at noon on the beginning and end dates. Click **Apply** to see your selected multi-day timeframe.
+
+## Time controls
+
+The time control provides you the following options: **Play**, **Pause** and **Force Play**.
+* **Play** - the content of the page will be automatically refreshed while this is in the foreground
+* **Pause** - the content of the page isn't refreshed due to a manual request to pause it or, for example, when your investigating data on a 
+chart (cursor is on top of a chart)
+* **Force Play** - the content of the page will be automatically refreshed even if this is in the background
+
+With this, we aim to bring more clarity and allow you to distinguish if the content you are looking at is live or historical and also allow you
+ to always refresh the content of the page when the tabs are in the background. 
+
+Main use cases for **Force Play**:
+* You use a terminal or deployment tools to do changes in your infra and want to see immediately, Netdata is in the background, displaying the impact 
+of these changes
+* You want to have Netdata on the background, example displayed on a TV, to constantly see metrics through dashboards or to watch the alert 
+status
+
+![The time control with Play, Pause and 
+Force Play](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/82235632/129206460-03c47d0d-1a5b-428a-b972-473718b74bdb.png)
+
+## Timezone selector
+
+With the timezone selector, you have the ability to change the timezone on Netdata Cloud. More often than not teams are 
+distributed in different timezones and they need to collaborate.
+
+Our goal is to make it easier for you and your teams to troubleshoot based on your timezone preference and communicate easily 
+with varying timezones and timeframes without the need to be concerned about their specificity.
+
+![Timezon selector](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/82235632/129209528-bc1d572d-4582-4142-aace-918287849499.png)
+
+When you change the timezone all the date and time fields will be updated to be displayed according to the specified timezone, this goes from 
+charts to alerts information and across the Netdata Cloud.
+
+## Caveats and considerations
+
+**Longer timeframes will decrease metrics granularity**. At the default timeframe, based on your browser viewport, each
+"tick" on charts represents one second. If you select a timeframe of 6 hours, each tick represents the _average_ value
+across a larger period of time.
+
+**You can only see metrics as far back in history as your metrics retention policy allows**. Netdata uses an internal
+time-series database (TSDB) to store as many metrics as it can within a specific amount of disk space. The default
+storage is 256 MiB, which should be enough for 1-3 days of historical metrics. If you navigate back to a timeframe
+beyond stored historical metrics, you'll see this message:
+
+![Screenshot of reaching the end of historical metrics
+storage](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/1153921/114207597-63a23280-9911-11eb-863d-4d2f75b030b4.png)
+
+At any time, [configure the internal TSDB's storage capacity](/docs/store/change-metrics-storage.md) to expand your
+depth of historical metrics.
+
+## What's next?
+
+One useful next step after selecting a timeframe is [exporting the
+metrics](/docs/dashboard/import-export-print-snapshot.mdx) into a snapshot file, which can then be shared and imported
+into any other Netdata dashboard.
+
+There are also many ways to [customize](/docs/dashboard/customize.mdx) the standard dashboard experience, from changing
+the theme to editing the text that accompanies every section of charts.
+
+## Further reading & related information
+
+- Dashboard
+  - [How the dashboard works](/docs/dashboard/how-dashboard-works.mdx)
+  - [Interact with charts](/docs/dashboard/interact-charts.mdx)
+  - [Chart dimensions, contexts, and families](/docs/dashboard/dimensions-contexts-families.mdx)
+  - [Import, export, and print a snapshot](/docs/dashboard/import-export-print-snapshot.mdx)
+  - [Customize the standard dashboard](/docs/dashboard/customize.mdx)
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