Parameter Editing Window

The Parameter Edit Window appears differently depending upon the Options selected by the user if any, and how flaunch was called. If flaunch was called in its standalone/interactive environment setting, i.e., flaunch then the parameter editing window which appears looks like:

The Default settings:

If no special options are defined by the user via the Options menubutton in the Flaunch window, then the default settings are used. The blue menubuttons (File, Run, and Help) can all be accessed either via the keyboard binding Alt+underlined-letter or by "clicking" upon the chosen menu.

The small displayed next to each "entry box" allows the user to display all available help about this particular parameter for this particular task in an "Extended Help" window. All information on parameters are in the "Extended Help" window. This allows the user to read all available help on each parameter before entering a value, thus removing any questions about what is being expected by the task.

The "entry box", i.e., the box in which the current value of the parameter is displayed, is usually a small editing window into which the user can type the desired command. (In cases where the input is Boolean - bool - the "entry box" is actually a checkbotton taking on the value of "yes" and "no" alternatively - removing the possibility of error.) True "entry boxes" which allow the user to input values (any data type except boolean) uses standard "Emacs" bindings for moving around within the box. (Control-a takes you to the beginning of the entry, and Control-e takes you to the end of the entry). The user can also paste into the entry-box whatever is high-lighted by the mouse via the middle-mouse-button (Button-2). The entry-box also allows the user to call the "File Selection" window by pressing the right-most-mouse-button, Button-3.

If you already have Button-3 mapped to something, you can use Shift-Button-3, or Control-Button-3 as well. Using Button-3 is the preferred way to activate the "File Selection" window since then all chosen files are unambiguously associated with a specific entry-box. (The default is to return the output to the First entry-box, if no entry-box is associated with the calling of the "File Selection" window. However, if you have previously selected an entry-box, and then chose to use the "File Selection" window, any file chosen will be placed in the entry-box that was chosen immediately prior to calling the "File Selection" window. The "File Selection" window can be chosen with the keystoke combination of Control-f when in the "Parameter Editing Window", also note that the "File Selection" window is then associated only with that particular parameter editing window, until a file is chosen. Of course the user could use the "high-light" and "paste" method to paste files into any parameter window that is open.)

With Everything turned off:

This setting is for users who do not like having extra buttons and options available, i.e., those who are used to the standard XPI interface and do not want to make use of the special options available under the "flaunch" environment.

The Hidden parameter setting:

If the Hidden parameter setting is active then all "hidden" parameters (i.e., those NOT normally prompted for since the default setting is usually the optimal setting) are shown in "red". This allows the user to see that these parameters can normally be left to their default settings without any problem. However, if the user changes these settings he should have carefully read the on-line help describing what these parameters do and how they do it as a careless change to these setting can cause the tools to produce output which accurately reflects what the user input, not NOT necessarily what the user wants.

The Command-control setting:

The "checkboxes" to the right of the Entry boxes (the fields which allow the user to input values) control the construction of the command-line which actually calls the associated Ftool. Thus if the checkbox is active (it is red - the default) then that parameter included in the command-line which calls the routine. If the checkbox has been deactivated (by the user clicking on that associated checkbox) then that parameter is NOT passed to the associated task.

Generally, all parameters should ALWAYS be passed to the Ftool being called. However, certain tools were written in a manner which uses the presence of the parameter in the command-line calls to affect the behavior of the tool. The worst offender is FDUMP and its "More" option. Eventually such non-intuitive behaviour will be removed by the construction of "configuration" files which tell Flaunch which parameters to include in the command line and which not to for the tools default behavior. However at the present the user must do this.

The novice user should NOT use this as the code will NOT pass that parameter to the code in the command-line. This can be useful, as in the case of FDUMP which uses the "More" parameter to pause the program, however it can also lead to undesired behaviour since if the user does not also change the "mode" such that they are prompted for this value if it is needed, the code will happily use what is in the parameter file. Care should be used in using this option and only the experience user of Ftools should ever use this setting.

The Command-control, Parameter-help, and Hidden parameter settings:

When all available options are chosen (except positioning the comment-line on the right) the Parameter Editing window appears as above.

The Command-control, Hidden parameter, and Comments on Right setting:

This screen shows what a Parameter Editing window looks like in which the user has opted to see all hidden parameters, as well as to have check boxes which control the command-line construction.

This option allows "flaunch" to look like certain "pre-GUI" tools which some users may have come to like. [Note: This option combined with the special behavior invoked by "flaunch taskname" (which can be turned off) allows "flaunch" to exactly mimic the behavior of certain IRAF tasks.]

The Command_line calling window:

If flaunch was called in its standalone/interactive environment setting, i.e., flaunch saextrct then the parameter editing window which appears (if both the Hidden and Command-control options were selected) looks like:

You will notice that in this window, "Run" is a button (since it is NOT blue) and NOT a menubutton (which are always blue). This is because when the parameter editing window is called in this manner the user has opted to run it as purely as a parameter editor, thus losing the advantages of flaunch's complete environment. So when the "Run" button is pushed flaunch terminates, and runs the selected task with all IO going to the window in which flaunch was originally called. [Note: this behavior requires that /dev/tty* be world writable!]

INDEX

Brian K. Elza

Last modified: Mon Jul 28 14:48:38 EDT