|
|
|
|
| Re: IDLWAVE 4.5 [message #22161 is a reply to message #22058] |
Wed, 18 October 2000 00:00   |
John-David T. Smith
Messages: 384
Registered: January 2000
|
Senior Member |
|
|
Kenneth Mankoff wrote:
>
> On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, Martin Schultz wrote:
>> Karsten Rodenacker wrote:
>>> Carsten Dominik schrieb:
>>>> IDLWAVE 4.5 fixes a few minor bugs in the object support.
>>>> (reported by JD Smith, as usually - is anybody else using this?).
>>>> http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~dominik/Tools/idlwave
>>>> - Carsten
>>>
>>> I am surprised that there is so little feedback on the tremendous work
>>> Carsten is doing with that (X)emacs mode idlwave! I think most users are
>>> happy with the state reached with idlde and are not aware of the
>>> possibilities of this emacs mode.
>>
>> Ohhhh. I for one just looove the idlwave emacs mode, and I am not
>> using anything else for editing of my IDL programs. However, I am
>> almost ashamed to reply to this thread, because I still haven't found
>> the time to play around with the shell within idlwave, and so I miss
>> out probably at least 80% of what idlwave can offer.
>
> Hi,
>
> I've spent some time useing the shell. The main problem that i run across
> is that now i have my emacs keys and my idl keys messed up. up-arrow
> doesn't recall my last IDL command anymore, it just moves up in the
> emacs text-buffer. Other than a few problems like that, it works quite
> nicely. Does anyone out there have a good workaround for this?
>
> -ken.
Like you, I was loathe to give up my basic xterm running IDL for the
built-in emacs shell. Here's what finally convinced me to switch (among
many, many others):
1. Compiling: No more typing ".run myfile" a million times. C-c C-d
C-c. Instant compilation. Nothing more natural when you've just edited
a file. Compile error? The line is highlighted. Fix my dumb syntax
mistake, run C-c C-d C-c again. Repeat until it compiles successfully.
This one is an *enormous* time savings.
2. Abbreviations: All of the abbreviations you love (like \ine -- see
http://www.strw.LeidenUniv.nl/~dominik/Tools/idlwave/idlwave .html#TOC14
if you don't know what I mean) are available in the shell. You can
easily add your own too.
3. Routine info, and instant online help: The same help features you
love from IDLWAVE buffers are available in the shell, as is the routine
info. No more fishing through manuals to recall the ordering of those
arguments. Instant, and I mean instant, access is available whether
you're writing a program or running one. example:
IDL> a=histogram([C-c ?] and you get:
Usage: Result = HISTOGRAM( Array)
Keywords: BINSIZE INPUT MAX MIN NAN OMAX OMIN REVERSE_INDICES
Source: Builtin
The Keywords are all blue, so I can right click on them (the color lets
me know they have a corresponding topic in the help file). Suppose I
right-click on "REVERSE_INDICES"... up pops the help buffer with:
REVERSE_INDICES
Set this keyword to a named variable in which
the list of reverse indices is returned.
This list is returned as a longword vector .....
all queued up. You can just as easily see routine information and view
the source of any IDL procedure, builtin, shipped with IDL, written by
you or others... anything.
4. Completion: Hit tab in the shell and a routine name, system
variable, field, filename, etc. is completed. It's even smart enough to
complete class names after
IDL> a=obj_new('[Tab]
and keywords to that classes' Init function after
IDL> a=obj_new('myClass',[Tab]
Those of you who use a shell like bash or tcsh that does completion
usually find that you hit Tab instinctively about every 10 keystrokes,
and the same is true in IDLWAVE's shell. This is a *major* time saver.
Examples.
IDL> a=readf[Tab]
and instantly I get
IDL> a=readfits(
A quick check to [C-c ?] tells me the file name is expected first, so I
begin typing it:
IDL> a=readfits('~/myfiles/[Tab]
now all my files are popped into a completion buffer (exactly the same
as if you were loading the file into emacs). I can choose one, or get
better completion by typing a few more characters, etc.
5. Compiling regions: Ever wanted to test out a bit of code but didn't
because it couldn't fit on one IDL command line (like an entire if then
begin endif else ... block)? You can simply compile and run *regions*
if you use the shell. Just highlight it and [C-c C-d C-e].
6. Debugging. I admit it. I too used to be a "when in doubt sprinkle
print and help statements liberally" debugger. No longer (ok, usually
no longer). Setting, deleting, viewing, and modifying breaks is so easy
with IDLWAVE and the shell that I just don't have an excuse anymore.
And being able to Shift-middle click on any variable name to have it's
value printed saves time by the bushel. Not to mention quickly
navigating the calling stack upon break or error (I suppose I already
mentioned that in a prior post).
7. History. The comint mode IDLWAVE uses for its shell saves the
entire history (doesn't use IDL's history). This means the history
survives restarting IDL (an unfortunately common occurence). And
powerful history searching (among many other features) is built right
into comint. I too missed my arrow keys for history recall, which is
why I added:
(setq comint-scroll-to-bottom-on-input t)
(setq comint-scroll-show-maximum-output t)
(define-key idlwave-shell-mode-map [up] 'comint-previous-input)
(define-key idlwave-shell-mode-map [down] 'comint-next-input)
into my idlwave-shell-mode-hook (see
http://www.strw.LeidenUniv.nl/~dominik/Tools/idlwave/idlwave .html#TOC40
for info on how this works). For help on any of these variables do [C-h
v] and type its name -- don't forget to use tab completion to make your
life easy. Now I get the best of both worlds. I can use Emacs'
powerful editing features on my old input and output, collecting things
together to construct a new command, for instance. I can keep commands
in registers and pop them out whenever needed, etc., etc. And when on
the command line, I can use up arrow just like I used to. There are
many more options to get comint to behave just as you like. See the
info (C-h i) for emacs->Shell Mode.
8. Shadow listing with likeliness ranking: a fancy way of saying
IDLWAVE detects those eminently bothersome times when more than one
routine of the same name is on your path or compiled in (or builtin).
You see this immediately with routine_info, and can even generate a full
shadow listing for everything idlwave knows about (which is a fair bit
more than IDL knows about). This works even without the shell running,
but if it is, it checks *compiled* routines also! Especially nice when
someone dumps a big package on you to test out and you just can't seem
to get it running, or can't run your old stuff alongside it.
I could go on and on but I won't. Emacs and all this lisp business is
intimidating at first, but you really don't need to know any of that to
get all the benefits. Customization usually just involves cut and paste
to your .emacs file. Don't let the parentheses scare you. Give it a
try, and you'll see why I spend so much time raving about it.
Thanks Carsten!
Good luck,
JD
P.S. And for those of you afraid you won't be able to install idlwave...
it is simple. All you do is download:
ftp://ftp.strw.leidenuniv.nl/pub/dominik/idlwave/idlwave.tar .gz
ftp://ftp.strw.leidenuniv.nl/pub/dominik/idlwave/idlwave-hel p.tar.gz
to /tmp (or anywhere), then do (as root):
% tar xzvf idlwave.tar.gz
% cd idlwave-version
% tar xzvf ../idlwave-help.tar.gz
% make
% make install-all
where "version" is something like 4.5. This by default puts idlwave in
/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/, which is a fine place. It also puts
the help files in /usr/local/etc, which is also fine. (Carsten had to
separate these for copyright issues, not to punish us).
Now simply add the following to the top of your .emacs file. (Note
possible changes):
;;;; IDLWAVE setup
; Comment the following out if emacs already knows about
; where idlwave is installed. Try M-x idlwave-mode to see.
; You can also change the path if you've put it somewhere strange.
(setq load-path (cons "/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp/" load-path))
; Change the following to point to the idlwave help files,
; if installed somewhere other than the default.
(setq idlwave-help-directory "/usr/local/etc")
; Font lock, not just for IDLWAVE... mmmm colors
; comment out if you're boring.
(global-font-lock-mode 1)
; Uncomment the following if you commented the above,
; but would like font-lock to operate in IDLWAVE mode.
;(add-hook 'idlwave-mode-hook 'turn-on-font-lock)
; Here we ensure sure IDLWAVE is loaded for .pro files...
(autoload 'idlwave-mode "idlwave" "IDLWAVE Mode" t)
(autoload 'idlwave-shell "idlw-shell" "IDLWAVE Shell" t)
(setq auto-mode-alist
(cons '("\\.pro\\'" . idlwave-mode) auto-mode-alist))
;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;
That's it to get going. See
http://www.strw.LeidenUniv.nl/~dominik/Tools/idlwave/idlwave .html#SEC40
for more customization fun. (I for one insist on (setq
idlwave-main-block-indent 3) -- with due deference to David Fanning's
coding style). And don't forget to build your personal catalog of
routines (menu IDLWAVE->Routine Info->Select Catalog Directories) for
maximum enjoyment!
Hope you made it this far.
--
J.D. Smith | WORK: (607) 255-6263
Cornell Dept. of Astronomy | (607) 255-5842
304 Space Sciences Bldg. | FAX: (607) 255-5875
Ithaca, NY 14853 |
|
|
|
|
| Re: IDLWAVE 4.5 [message #22163 is a reply to message #22058] |
Wed, 18 October 2000 00:00 |
mole6e23
Messages: 31
Registered: December 1998
|
Member |
|
|
Martin Schultz <martin.schultz@dkrz.de> wrote:
> Ohhhh. I for one just looove the idlwave emacs mode, and I am not
> using anything else for editing of my IDL programs. However, I am
> almost ashamed to reply to this thread, because I still haven't found
> the time to play around with the shell within idlwave, and so I miss
That's basically the same situation I'm in. I adore the syntax coloring
and the automatic indentation, and the functions lists (not to mention
just the emacs search functionality, etc.), but I really haven't explored
90% of the rest of the stuff that the idlwave mode does, so I didn't want
to respond, either. But now that I'm not alone, it's much easier. =) The
only things I use to do IDL are xemacs and the idl command line. I used
the IDLDE for about a week before I decided it was the silliest thing on
earth. (perhaps a little exaggeration, but I didn't like it much.)
I've accidentally gotten into the shell mode before, but I'm so used to
the normal command line that I got out of it quickly. So I don't use all
those fancy features that allow me to look at variables, etc. I still use
a lot of "print" and "help" statements in my code to figure things out. As
with Martin, it will be someday that I'll get around to learning the rest
of it.
Todd
|
|
|
|
| Re: IDLWAVE 4.5 [message #22164 is a reply to message #22058] |
Wed, 18 October 2000 00:00 |
Kenneth Mankoff
Messages: 42
Registered: August 1999
|
Member |
|
|
On Wed, 18 Oct 2000, Martin Schultz wrote:
> Karsten Rodenacker wrote:
>> Carsten Dominik schrieb:
>>> IDLWAVE 4.5 fixes a few minor bugs in the object support.
>>> (reported by JD Smith, as usually - is anybody else using this?).
>>> http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~dominik/Tools/idlwave
>>> - Carsten
>>
>> I am surprised that there is so little feedback on the tremendous work
>> Carsten is doing with that (X)emacs mode idlwave! I think most users are
>> happy with the state reached with idlde and are not aware of the
>> possibilities of this emacs mode.
>
> Ohhhh. I for one just looove the idlwave emacs mode, and I am not
> using anything else for editing of my IDL programs. However, I am
> almost ashamed to reply to this thread, because I still haven't found
> the time to play around with the shell within idlwave, and so I miss
> out probably at least 80% of what idlwave can offer.
Hi,
I've spent some time useing the shell. The main problem that i run across
is that now i have my emacs keys and my idl keys messed up. up-arrow
doesn't recall my last IDL command anymore, it just moves up in the
emacs text-buffer. Other than a few problems like that, it works quite
nicely. Does anyone out there have a good workaround for this?
-ken.
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Re: IDLWAVE 4.5 [message #22167 is a reply to message #22058] |
Wed, 18 October 2000 00:00 |
Martin Schultz
Messages: 515
Registered: August 1997
|
Senior Member |
|
|
Karsten Rodenacker wrote:
>
> Carsten Dominik schrieb:
>
>> IDLWAVE 4.5 fixes a few minor bugs in the object support.
>> (reported by JD Smith, as usually - is anybody else using this?).
>>
>> http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~dominik/Tools/idlwave
>>
>> - Carsten
>
> I am surprised that there is so little feedback on the tremendous work
> Carsten is doing with that (X)emacs mode idlwave! I think most users are
> happy with the state reached with idlde and are not aware of the
> possibilities of this emacs mode.
>
> Unluckily there is seemingly not such comfortable system under Windows
> possible caused by the lacking process communication. What about using
> cygwin? Maybe that is a possibility to overcome the Windows limitations.
>
> --
> Karsten Rodenacker ()
Ohhhh. I for one just looove the idlwave emacs mode, and I am not
using anything else for editing of my IDL programs. However, I am
almost ashamed to reply to this thread, because I still haven't found
the time to play around with the shell within idlwave, and so I miss
out probably at least 80% of what idlwave can offer. And for a
non-native emacser, I find it still relatively hard to configure the
editor or install a new version of idlwave or ... -- In my new way of
doing things (writing objects) I often wish I had a class browser
handy; and as I hear, this is available in the idlwave mode. So, there
will be the day ....
Cheers,
Martin
--
[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ [[[[[[[
[[ Dr. Martin Schultz Max-Planck-Institut fuer Meteorologie [[
[[ Bundesstr. 55, 20146 Hamburg [[
[[ phone: +49 40 41173-308 [[
[[ fax: +49 40 41173-298 [[
[[ martin.schultz@dkrz.de [[
[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ [[[[[[[
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Re: IDLWAVE 4.5 [message #22294 is a reply to message #22058] |
Thu, 02 November 2000 11:03 |
Vapuser
Messages: 63
Registered: November 1998
|
Member |
|
|
Matt Haffner <haffner@astro.wisc.edu> writes:
> Paul van Delst <pvandelst@ncep.noaa.gov> writes:
<snip>
>> 'C-h; C-cC-dC-e'?
Actually it should have been 'C-xh; C-cC-dC-e' What I typed would
only have confused 'help'
>>
>> Good ctrl-alt-del lord! Now I remember why I don't use emacs. :o)
>
> Not to start a editor holy-war or anything but for quite a while most of
> the cryptic keyboard commands are available via menus in emacs and
> xemacs for you mouse-types. This is especially true for custom modes
> like IDLWAVE--just about everything is there in the menu for you to
> explore...
>
This is true. I'm not sure about the 'C-xh' (sorry for the
mistyping) to mark the buffer, but the 'run region' is there. Hmmm,
yep, the 'save and .run' will save the entire buffer and .run it, so
you could do exactly what I typed but from the menu.
I just use the keyboard equivalents because I find it faster and
easier. I do it so much my fingers remember it easily, although I
can't type the right keystrokes when composing a followup.
whd
--
William Daffer: 818-354-0161: William.Daffer@jpl.nasa.gov
|
|
|
|
| Re: IDLWAVE 4.5 [message #22312 is a reply to message #22058] |
Wed, 01 November 2000 14:38 |
Matt Haffner
Messages: 34
Registered: October 2000
|
Member |
|
|
Paul van Delst wrote:
>
> Vapuser wrote:
>>
>> Carsten Dominik <dominik@astro.uva.nl> writes:
>>
>>> IDLWAVE 4.5 fixes a few minor bugs in the object support.
>>> (reported by JD Smith, as usually - is anybody else using this?).
>>>
>>> http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~dominik/Tools/idlwave
>>>
>>> - Carsten
>>
>> Carsten;
>>
>> I realize I'm a little late on this thread, but... I just want to
>> say I use IDLWAVE mode *all the time*. It's the *only* way I do any
>> editing. I almost never run IDL outside of idlwave-shell and I
>> especially love the ability to write a little .run script in a
>> buffer, then do 'C-h; C-cC-dC-e' to run it.
>
> 'C-h; C-cC-dC-e'?
>
> Good ctrl-alt-del lord! Now I remember why I don't use emacs. :o)
Not to start a editor holy-war or anything but for quite a while most of
the cryptic keyboard commands are available via menus in emacs and
xemacs for you mouse-types. This is especially true for custom modes
like IDLWAVE--just about everything is there in the menu for you to
explore...
mh
--
Matt Haffner /|------|\ University of Wisconsin
Dept. of Astronomy /|--------|\ Madison
haffner@astro.wisc.edu /|----------|\
WHAM project -- http://www.astro.wisc.edu/wham
|
|
|
|
| Re: IDLWAVE 4.5 [message #22319 is a reply to message #22058] |
Wed, 01 November 2000 06:07 |
Paul van Delst
Messages: 364
Registered: March 1997
|
Senior Member |
|
|
Vapuser wrote:
>
> Carsten Dominik <dominik@astro.uva.nl> writes:
>
>> IDLWAVE 4.5 fixes a few minor bugs in the object support.
>> (reported by JD Smith, as usually - is anybody else using this?).
>>
>> http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~dominik/Tools/idlwave
>>
>> - Carsten
>
> Carsten;
>
> I realize I'm a little late on this thread, but... I just want to
> say I use IDLWAVE mode *all the time*. It's the *only* way I do any
> editing. I almost never run IDL outside of idlwave-shell and I
> especially love the ability to write a little .run script in a
> buffer, then do 'C-h; C-cC-dC-e' to run it.
'C-h; C-cC-dC-e'?
Good ctrl-alt-del lord! Now I remember why I don't use emacs. :o)
(Sorry Carsten :o( )
cheers,
paulv
--
Paul van Delst Ph: (301) 763-8000 x7274
CIMSS @ NOAA/NCEP Fax: (301) 763-8545
Rm.207, 5200 Auth Rd. Email: pvandelst@ncep.noaa.gov
Camp Springs MD 20746
|
|
|
|
| Re: IDLWAVE 4.5 [message #22322 is a reply to message #22058] |
Tue, 31 October 2000 15:14 |
promashkin
Messages: 169
Registered: December 1999
|
Senior Member |
|
|
Vapuser wrote:
> It is, without a doubt, the absolute best way to write IDL I've
> found
I believe you. I was so tempted by this thread that I tried to set up
Xemacs again on my PPC. Another couple hours wasted, but not the whole
day - I got smarter. I can't figure it out. Sorry. I believe IDLWAVE is
great, but with the dumb brains inside my head I am sticking to the IDL
DE :-(
Cheers,
Pavel
|
|
|
|
| Re: IDLWAVE 4.5 [message #22323 is a reply to message #22058] |
Tue, 31 October 2000 14:26 |
Vapuser
Messages: 63
Registered: November 1998
|
Member |
|
|
Carsten Dominik <dominik@astro.uva.nl> writes:
> IDLWAVE 4.5 fixes a few minor bugs in the object support.
> (reported by JD Smith, as usually - is anybody else using this?).
>
> http://www.strw.leidenuniv.nl/~dominik/Tools/idlwave
>
> - Carsten
Carsten;
I realize I'm a little late on this thread, but... I just want to
say I use IDLWAVE mode *all the time*. It's the *only* way I do any
editing. I almost never run IDL outside of idlwave-shell and I
especially love the ability to write a little .run script in a
buffer, then do 'C-h; C-cC-dC-e' to run it. I use this functionality
to build up little parts of a longer program, I just keep gluing
these little snippets of code into larger peices of code until I
have some large program.
In fact, this announcement in the newsgroup made me go off, get the
emacs 20.4 code an actually build it on my SGI, no mean feat, when
you consider how strangely SGIs are set up some times. That's how
devoted I am!
It is, without a doubt, the absolute best way to write IDL I've
found. Thanks for maintaining it!
whd
--
William Daffer: 818-354-0161: William.Daffer@jpl.nasa.gov
|
|
|
|
comp.lang.idl-pvwave archive
Members
Search
Help
Login
Home
