| IDL 7.0 Projects [message #57269] |
Wed, 05 December 2007 14:42  |
David Fanning
Messages: 11724
Registered: August 2001
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Senior Member |
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Folks,
I've been thinking about IDL projects quite a lot the past
couple of days, because I'm trying to write an article that
can explain this to someone like me. Obviously, I am having
a great deal of difficulty. :-(
Here is my latest idea. See what you think of it.
First, forget about "projects". (Well, you can't forget
about them entirely, since IDL 7 is going to force you
to use them.) Of course, I'm talking to the Windows crowd
here, but I think the same thing applies to most users.
Instead, think about "work". You probably already have
your IDL *.pro files organized in some kind of "work"
structure.
For example, I have a "david" directory, and inside of
that I have folders named "coyote", "activecontour",
"catalyst", "test", etc. My normal way of working is
to work in the "david" directory when I am just
fooling around, but if I have a specific task
or, heaven forbid, "project", I make a separate folder
to contain those programs.
What I wanted to do in IDL 7 was duplicate this way of
working, but if I create a "david" project, then I can
no longer create "coyote" and "catalyst" projects, because
these live in the "david" folder, and projects (as far as
I can tell) cannot be nested like this.
So here is what I've created, that is sort of working for
me. I've renamed the Default project "Sandbox" and I let that
go into the IDLWorkshop folder. This is now where I do my
fooling around. I've renamed my "david" folder "idlwork" and
with the exception of moving all the *.pro files out of there
and over into my "sandbox" directory, I've left the directory
structure alone.
So, when I fire the IDL Workspace up, I am looking at the
project Sandbox. Now, if someone sends me an e-mail saying
that FSC_COLOR is a piece of crap, and here is how you can
fix it, I simply create a *new* project named "Coyote" and
I create if from the "coyote" directory in "idlwork". I can
make changes to coyote programs there. When I am finished with
it, I can just delete the Coyote project (taking care, God knows,
NOT to delete the contents of the directory!) and I am back
to my Sandbox. I can do this with any "project" I care to work
with.
This has several advantages. It keeps my Project Explorer
from overflowing with projects I'm not the least bit interested
in at the moment. It means the Workshop doesn't "Analyze Code"
for an hour and a half every morning. And it sort of makes
sense to me.
Of course, if I forget to delete the project before I exit
the IDL Workspace, it just starts up again the next morning
with the same configuration I left it in.
And, naturally, I do ALL the path manipulation manually
because I don't trust ANY software that thinks its smarter
than I am. This means my programs can find coyote, and catalyst,
and other procedures when they need them, even if they are NOT
in the project currently.
Does this seem like a workable configuration to anyone?
Cheers,
David
--
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting, Inc.
Coyote's Guide to IDL Programming: http://www.dfanning.com/
Sepore ma de ni thui. ("Perhaps thou speakest truth.")
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