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Adding Spatial Display Frames
To add a new Spatial Display frame to a dashboard, open a Spatial Display and click the Add to Dashboard button in the toolbar. This action adds a copy of the Spatial Display as a frame to the currently open user-defined dashboard.
If multiple user-defined dashboards are open, you’ll be prompted to select the one to which the frame should be added. If no user-defined dashboards are open, you’ll be asked to open one first.
After adding a frame to a dashboard, the dashboard to which it was added will be brought into focus automatically.
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Adding Time Series Dialog Frames
You can add frames from the Time Series Dialog to a dashboard. The graphs can be based on either Display Groups (available since version 2020.02) or Data Viewer selections (available since version 2021.02).
To do this, click the Add to Dashboard button located in the top-left corner of the Time Series Dialog.
Note: A dashboard must already be created and open before you can add a Time Series frame.
Modifying Frame Contents
Spatial Display frames will only show the map and plot. To gain access to the plot tree, accumulation slider and legend, a frame must be maximized. This can be done by clicking the maximize button on the frame, or double-clicking its title.
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For example, the situation before using the "Arrange Frames Automatically" option is shown on the left while the result is shown on the right in the screenshots below:
Frame Titles
For newly added frames, the title is generated automatically. It consists of the grid plot name, followed by the selected accumulation (if any). The title updates automatically whenever the grid plot or accumulation changes.
Since multiple grid plots can share the same name, you can assign custom titles to frames. To do this, select the frame you want to rename, then choose Rename Active Frame from the dashboard drop-down menu. Once a frame has been given a custom title, it will retain that title even if the displayed grid plot or accumulation changes.
Note: The option to rename frames is only available for user-defined dashboards. In predefined dashboards, whether a frame title is fixed (custom) or automatically generated is determined by the configurator.
Deleting a frame
Frames in user-defined dashboards can be deleted from the dashboard by closing the frame (through the close-button in the frame's title bar). The frame will be permanently deleted from the dashboard, so after closing an reopening the dashboard, the frame will still be gone.
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Configuring a Predefined Dashboard
To configure a predefined dashboard, first construct the dashboard you wish to make as a user-defined dashboard in a standalone environment. Once you are satisfied with the contents of the dashboard, you can use the debug menu (F12) of the dashboard panel to turn the user-defined dashboard you constructed into a predefined dashboard.
This will cause FEWS to automatically move the information stored for that dashboard from the user_settings.ini file to the dashboards.ini file. A new dashboards.ini file will be created if none exists, or the information will be added if a file is already present. FEWS will then automatically restart, and after this restart the dashboard will be included in the predefined dashboards section instead of the user-defined dashboards section.
If a configurator wishes to make changes to a predefined dashboard, they can use a standalone environment and the debug menu (F12) of the dashboard panel to turn the predefined dashboard back into a user-defined dashboard. This will perform the reverse action, moving the dashboard settings from the dashboards.ini back to the user_settings.ini file. After the automatic restart, changes can be made to the dashboard. Once the changes are complete, the debug menu can again be used to turn the now user-defined dashboard back into a predefined dashboard.
Note that, aside from the logical settings such as the frames and the dashboard title, the dashboard settings stored in the ini-files also include the following:
the way the frames are arranged on the desktop
the button status of the grid display toolbars for each frame
the status of the synchronization buttons
It is advisable to always check that the dashboard looks as intended when (re)opening it before turning it into a predefined dashboard.
It is possible to assign permissions to predefined dashboards to control which users can access them through the Explorer.xml. More information on this can be found in the relevant section of the configuration documentation: Configuration Guide > System Configuration > FEWS Explorer > Predefined Dashboards.
Organising your Predefined Dashboards in folders (2026.01 release)
The predefined dashboards are included in the dashboards.ini file. When your list of dashboards starts to become too long or you want to add some structure, it is possible to organise the dashboads in folders. To add a folder, use the "/" character in hte name. Example below adds the "Precipitation UKV,BE,RWC"dashboard in the "Precipitation" dashboard folder. It is possible to have multiple levels of folders by adding another "/" character in the name "Level2/Level2/DashboardName".
[Dashboard_1]
name=Precipitation/Precipitation UKV,BE,RWC
