id	summary	reporter	owner	description	type	status	priority	milestone	component	version	resolution	keywords	cc
5447	Automatically pick the right prefix for units in OMEdit plots	massimo ceraolo	Adeel Asghar	"A few years ago, I made a proposal of using standard prefixes for plots, that was not accepted because the tool used to draw plots had not this capability.
Now OMEdit has improved a lot, and, in my opinion, the need of better visualisation of scales is more prominent. Therefore I formulate a new proposal that does not require any special feature of the plotting tool.
The presence of a drop-down menu for Display Unit of all plot variables, helps a lot.
What I propose is a smart scaling feature that avoids, as default, the writing of numbers in exponential form in the vertical axis as follows:
1.	Whenever a variable has its absolute maximum above 1000 and below 1000000 show that variable with “k” prefix. For instance, if we have a max power equal to 20000 W, or a min power equal to -30000W power is to be showed in kW instead of W. The Display Unit menu would have as choices “W” and “kW""; so that if one (not me!) prefers, for some reason, the display in exponential form, he can;
2.	Whenever a variable has its absolute maximum below 0.1 and above 0.0001 show that variable with “m” prefix. For instance, if we have a max power of 0.005 W (or a min  power of -0.005 W), show it in mW. The Display Unit menu would have as choices “W” and “mW""; so that if one  prefers, for some reason, the display in exponential form, he can;
3.	Use the same pattern in the above points 1 and 2 also for larger and smaller values, so that prefixes between “f” (“femto”) and “P” (peta) are used
4.	If a variable has its absolute maximum above 10^18^ or absolute minimum below 10^-16^, show it using the unit without prefix (in exponential form) 
In addition to the points 1 to 4 above, I propose the following special cases:
5.	For angular speeds always add in the menu in the unit column, in addition to the standard “rad/s” also “rpm”
6.	For energies always add in the menu in the Display Unit column, in addition to standard “J”, also “Wh” (both with and without prefix, the prefix, if needed, being chosen according to the rules 1  to 3 above)

I understand that the rules that I propose are somewhat arbitrary. However, IMO something needs to be done, and I created this proposal in the effort of suggesting good ideas, that can be enhanced with discussion and tests on a prototype implementation.
"	enhancement	closed	blocker	1.21.0	OMEdit	1.18.0-dev	fixed