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Getting Started with IDL: Where to Go From Here |
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A multitude of resources are made available to you to assist you as you learn the many capabilities of IDL. IDL manuals are offered both printed and online (in PDF version). IDL also includes an online help system directly accessible from the IDL Development Environment.
If you have just purchased IDL, you will receive part of the documentation set (depending upon which products you have purchased) in printed form with your order. All IDL manuals are available in PDF form on your product CD-ROM. For more information, see Online Manuals.
The Installation and Licensing Guide describes how to install and license IDL on your platform. It provides information about the different types of licensing available for IDL and how to manage licensing on your system.
Using IDL explains IDL from an interactive user's point of view. It contains information about the IDL environment, the structure of IDL, and how to use IDL to analyze and visualize your data.
Application Programming explains how to use the IDL language to write programs - from simple procedures to large, complex applications. It contains information on the structure of the IDL language, programming techniques, and tools you can use to create applications in IDL.
Image Processing introduces you to the full image processing power of IDL, describing how to display, manipulate, and extract information from images. This manual features both Direct Graphics and Object Graphics examples that will aid in developing IDL applications that require image processing.
The iTool User's Guide shows you important iTool functionality such as how to start the iTools, how to import data into an iTool, how to export data out of an iTool, the general layout of the iTools, and how to perform common iTool tasks.
The iTool Programming describes the IDL iTools component framework and provides examples of its use. The manual helps you understand how to use the component framework to create your own intelligent tools.
The IDL Quick Reference provides quick access to the following: IDL procedures and functions (categorized functionally and alphabetically), objects, executive commands, and statements.
The IDL Reference Guide contains detailed information about all of IDL's procedures, functions, objects, system variables, and other useful reference materials. It also contains detailed information about IDL's routines for dealing with Common Data Format (CDF), Hierarchical Data Format (HDF), Earth Observing System extensions to HDF (HDF-EOS), and Network Common Data Format (NetCDF) files.
Object Programming discusses object-oriented programming using IDL and contains information about IDL's object graphics system.
The External Development Guide explains how to use IDL to develop applications that interact with programs written in other programming languages.
Obsolete IDL Features describes routines that have become obsolete by enhancements to the IDL language. While these routines continue to exist, we recommend that you do not use routines that have become obsolete in new code.
The IDL DataMiner Guide contains information on using IDL to interact with databases using the Open Database Connectivity (ODBC) interface.
| Note Additional documentation can be ordered by contacting ITT Visual Information Solutions Sales at (303) 786-9900 or by visiting www.ittvis.com. |
IDL is equipped with extensive on-line help facilities that provide two kinds of information: documentation for the IDL language and information on the status of the IDL environment. There are several ways to access these help facilities from within the IDL:
To view the IDL help system, select "Contents" from the "Help" pull-down menu in the IDL Development Environment. You can also search using the "Find Topic" selection on the same menu.
You can access the IDL Help by entering a question mark (?) at the IDL prompt. The IDL Online Help window appears. The most current documentation on any aspect of IDL is available through this command. Although the help window has buttons for performing searches, you can also perform a keyword search from the command line by entering "?" followed by a keyword for which you want to search. For example, to search for topics related to contouring when starting the help system, you could enter:
? CONTOUR
You can access the IDL online help system when IDL itself is not running. On UNIX and Mac OS X, execute the following at the shell prompt:
idlhelp
On Windows platforms, select IDL Online Help from the Start menu.
The HELP procedure gives information about the IDL session. Enter:
HELP
with no additional parameters to display an overview of the current IDL session including one-line descriptions of all variables and the names of all compiled procedures and functions. Enter:
HELP, variable
to display information about that variable's type. Many keyword parameters can be used with the HELP procedure to retrieve more specific information.
All volumes of the IDL documentation set are also available in Adobe Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF). These PDF files are provided on the IDL installation CD-ROM, but are not automatically installed on your machine along with IDL. In order to view these manuals, you will need a copy of Adobe's Acrobat Reader software. For more information on Adobe Acrobat Reader, visit their World Wide Web site at www.adobe.com.
The IDL online manuals are located in the info/docs directory of your IDL CD-ROM.
The online IDL manuals are fully hypertext linked for easy navigation. You can also use the bookmarks panel at the left of the Acrobat Reader window to switch between manuals.
The IDL online manuals are set up to search for any information you might need within the IDL manual set. To search the IDL manual set, you can click on the binocular/page button in the Acrobat Reader tool bar after you have opened any IDL manual in the set.
IDL Online Help (March 06, 2007)