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Running IDL or ENVI under Macintosh

You can run IDL or ENVI in one of two ways:

You can also enable accelerators that use the Alt key to work with the Macintosh Apple key (also known as the Command key). For details, see the topic "Enabling Alt Key Accelerators on Macintosh" in IDL Help.

Running IDL or ENVI from Applescript

To run IDL or ENVI, click on one of the Applescript applications in the ITT_DIR/idlxx directory. Table 4-1 describes the complete list of applications:

Table 4-1: Applescript Applications 

Table 4-1: Applescript Applications 
Icon Name
File Name
Description 
envi+idl  

envi+idl.app
Starts command-line ENVI + IDL. 
envi  

envi.app
Starts an ENVI session. 
ENVIZoom  

ENVIZoom.app
Starts ENVI Zoom. 
ENVIHelp  

ENVIHelp.app
Starts ENVI Help. 
idl  

idl.app
Starts command-line IDL. 
idlde  

idlde.app
Starts an IDL development environment session. 
idlvm  

idlvm.app
Starts an IDL Virtual Machine session. 
IDLDemos  

IDLDemos.app
Starts the IDL Demo application. 
IDLHelp  

IDLHelp.app
Starts IDL Help. 
LicenseWizard  

LicenseWizard.app
Starts the license wizard. 
DICOMNetwork-
Services  

DICOMNetworkServices.
app
Starts the DICOM Network Services.

Manually Creating an Alias to an IDL or ENVI Applescript

To manually create a Macintosh alias to an IDL or ENVI Applescript, on your desktop or other convenient location:

  1. Open a Finder window, and navigate to the ITT_DIR/idlxx directory of your IDL or ENVI installation.

    2.  

  2. Identify the Applescript icon for which you would like to create an alias, for example, idlde.

    3.  

  3. While holding the Option and Command keys on your keyboard, click and drag the target icon to your desktop. Copying or moving the Applescript to another location (rather than creating a Macintosh alias) will cause the Applescript to fail.

Running IDL or ENVI from the Command Line

This section covers how to run IDL or ENVI from the X-Windows prompt on Mac OS X.

  1. Launch X11 from the Applications/Utilities folder. X11 displays a UNIX X-Windows command line in an OS X window.

    2.  

  2. Before you can run IDL or ENVI, you must set up each user's environment on the machine that will be running it. See Defining Environment Variables and Aliases.

    3.  

  3. You can now start IDL or ENVI or any of the following executables by entering one of the following commands at the command line:

All available commands are listed in Table 4-2.

 

Table 4-2: Startup Commands 

Table 4-2: Startup Commands 
Command
Description 
envi
Starts command-line ENVI+IDL in an Xterminal window. 
envi_rt
Starts an ENVI session. 
envizoom
Starts an ENVI Zoom session. 
envihelp
Starts ENVI Help. 
idl
Starts IDL in command-line access mode. 
idlde
Starts IDL Development Environment. 
idl -vm
Starts IDL Virtual Machine. 
idl -rt
Starts the runtime version of IDL. 
idldemo
Starts the IDL Demo Applications. You can also type demo at the IDL prompt after you have started IDL. 
idlhelp
Starts IDL and ION Help.

Running the IDL Virtual Machine under Macintosh

You can run the IDL Virtual Machine from Applescript or from the command line.

Running from Applescript

To start the IDL Virtual Machine, double-click on idlvm.app in the ITT_DIR/idlxx directory.

Running from the Command Line

To run a *.sav file in the IDL Virtual Machine:

  1. Start X11.

    2.  

  2. Enter idl -vm=<path><filename>.sav at the X11 Terminal prompt, where <path> is the path to the *.sav file, and <filename> is the name of the *.sav file. The IDL Virtual Machine window is displayed.

    3.  

  3. Click anywhere on the IDL Virtual Machine window to close the window and to run the *.sav file.

To launch the IDL Virtual Machine and select a *.sav file to open:

  1. Start X11.

    2.  

  2. Enter idl -vm at the X11 Terminal prompt. The IDL Virtual Machine window is displayed.

    3.  

  3. Click anywhere on the IDL Virtual Machine window to display the file selection menu.

    4.  

  4. Open a *.sav file from the file selection menu.

Running IDL Runtime Applications under Macintosh

To run a *.sav file in the runtime version of IDL:

  1. Start X11.

    2.  

  2. Enter idl -rt=<path><filename>.sav at the X11 Terminal prompt, where <path> is the path to the *.sav file, and <filename> is the name of the *.sav file.

    3.  

  3. The application contained in the *.sav file is run in the runtime version of IDL.

    4.  

    When a *.sav file is run with the idl -rt command on a machine without an IDL license, it will run in the IDL Virtual Machine.

  IDL Online Help (March 06, 2007)