XFWINDOW - One-click printing (Unix)

Screen shot

WARNING: does not work under IDL 5.5 or IDL 5.6!

XFWINDOW is an intelligent widget for IDL which makes Unix printing a snap! It remembers any graphics commands you have typed, allowing you to send the output to a file or printer with the single push of a button. You no longer have to mess around with SET_PLOT, DEVICE, or any of the other cumbersome commands. XFILTER is a loadable module for IDL which makes this process possible. Note that precompiled binaries are included for the following versions and platforms:

• IDL 5.1 or higher only
• SunOS, Solaris Sparc, DEC Unix, Linux and SGI IRIX only

Sorry, but Windows, Mac, IBM AIX and HPUX are not supported. However if you want to try your hand at porting to an unsupported platform I would be willing to consult with you. Also read the file COMPILING in the distribution.

When you run XFWINDOW, a normal IDL graphics window appears, adorned with a few extra buttons. You can perform all of your normal interactive IDL analysis using the standard IDL graphics commands. When you find a plot you like, simply press the "Output" button to make a printout.

INSTALLATION: XFILTER/XFWINDOW comes both as a gzipped Unix tar file and as a Zip file. Download whichever you prefer into a directory in your IDL path, and extract the archive using one of the following commands, whichever is appropriate:

gzip -dc xfilter-0.8.tar.gz | tar xvf -  (for TAR file;   or...)
unzip xfilter-0.8.zip                    (for ZIP file)

Type XFWINDOW at the IDL prompt to begin working.

XFILTER and XFWINDOW include source code and are distributed under the GNU General Public License. If you port to new platforms, please let me know. The XFILTER library itself is quite general, and a programmer's interface is provided, documented in the file PROGRAMMING in the distribution.

CMPS_FORM - Configure Postscript layout

Unix screen shot - appearance will vary on different platforms

Originally by David Fanning, this function creates a printer setup dialog that can be used when sending output to a Postscript printer. The user interactively selects the desired attributes of the Postscript output, such as color and size. The return value of the function is a structure which can be sent to the DEVICE command. David Fanning's other superb graphics programs use this function to set up Postscript printers.

This version is significantly enhanced from Fanning's original. Two functionally identical versions are available, one named CMPS_FORM and one named PS_FORM; the latter is to be used as a drop-in replacement of Fanning's PS_FORM. New features:

• Custom plot layouts, selectable by dropbox. This is a great way to ensure that every plot comes out with a standard size. Several of my favorite layouts are included as the default, but you can include your own by declaring a common block, or passing in via the PREDEFINED keyword. The technique is documented under "COMMON BLOCKS" at the head of the program file. Predefined layouts know about the proper paper size.
• Selection of paper size, including A4 and a myriad of other eurometric paper dimensions. Recently updated, CMPS_FORM can be more easily integrated into other widget programs.
• International support, via the option of selecting ISO Latin1 encoding.

If you use XWINDOW, you should download the newer version below.

XWINDOW - Display resizeable graphics to both screen and printer

This is a modified version of David Fanning's original resizeable graphics window. It has been enhanced to accept up to ten plot parameters. It also interacts correctly with the "CM" versions of PS_FORM. Recently updated, it now properly interacts with other widget programs under IDL version 5.