IDLDE Startup Hints

Preferences

Lots of things may be customized with the Files->Preferences menu entry. For example, you may want to:

avoid the initial "splash" screen
avoid the confirmation messages when recompiling and / or exiting
remove the projects panel
remove the "user" toolbar segment
make the toolbar one line high instead of two
...

Browse around among the preferences panes to find the properties you wnat to change. Use the SAVE button to make the change permanent.

Text pane background

One thing that cannot be customized with the preferences is details of the color scheme used. Such things may be customized through the ~/.Xdefaults file.

For example: If you prefer to have a white background in text panes (input, log, editor), add this line to your ~/.Xdefaults file:

idlde*XmText*background: white

The change will take effect the next time you log in. To make it effective immediately, use the following UNIX command:

     xrdb ~/.Xdefaults

and then restart IDLDE.

Library search path

The hierarchy /local/idl/lib contains various local libraries, that you may want to include as a whole, or in pieces. To browse the hierarchy and set the IDLDE Path

Choose: File -> Preferences -> Path
Click on the last line of the directory list, and then on "Insert"
In the requestor window that opens, replace the contents of the "Filter" text input line with /local/idl/lib (you may or may not have to add /*, depending on the version of IDL.
If that choice is what you want, just press OK.
If you want to use only a selection of the available libraries, use the requestor window to browse and make a selection.
When you have made the selection, click on the small square to the left of the directory, to make the search include all subdirectories.
You may use the arrow buttons to change the search order (this has importance only when a routine exists under the same name in different libraries, e.g. for overriding a buggy version)

$Id: IDLDEstartup.shtml,v 1.3 2007/02/07 16:22:05 aake Exp $