9.2.5 Entity Headings

By default, when an entity is defined, its heading is drawn at that location. If the entity name is preceeded by the hide keyword or the show=no attribute is specified at the entity definition then the entity heading is not drawn at the location of the definition. It is drawn later, if/when the entity is turned on by using show followed by the entity name or by setting show=yes. Note that multiple entities can be listed after both show and hide. It is also possible to specify other attributes for entities after these keywords.

Mentioning an entity after its definition either preceeded by show or with show=yes will cause an entity heading to be drawn into the chart even if the entity is already shown. This can be useful for long charts, see Defining Entities for examples.

You can display all of the entity headings using the heading; command, as well. This command displays an entity heading for all (currently showing) entities. This may be useful after a newpage; command, see Commands. However, the best practice is to use ‘newpage [auto_heading=yes];’ instead, since it only shows the heading when the chart is viewed per-page (which is the same for page breaks inserted by automatic pagination).

Using the show and hide commands in themselves with no entity specified after, will make all entities show or hide. (Same with activate and deactivate.) See the example below.

exBF_cshexBF

Note that entity related commands are merged. Thus saying show; hide A; will show all entities, except A in a single line of entity headings. If you want to manipulate entities in separate visual lines, insert a nudge; command in between the entity manipulating commands (as at the end of the example above).