Re: Exceed and IDL

[Liam Gumley <Liam.Gumley(at)ssec.wisc.edu>]

bkrrrrr wrote:
> > Issuing the following command at the start of your IDL session should do
> > the trick:
> >
> > DEVICE, DECOMPOSED=0, RETAIN=2
> >
>    FWIW, this has never worked for me, in that
> curves drawn in the work area are not retained
> with retain=2 (or anything else).

Strange. Did you issue the command

DEVICE, RETAIN=2

*before* creating any graphics windows, just after starting IDL? This
command *must* be executed prior to creating a graphics window,
otherwise it will have no effect (at least it has no effect on my SGI
box running IDL 5.2). I recommend using this command in a startup file.
For example, all our local IDL users have the following startup file
(named idl_startup.pro):

;---cut here---
;- Set up 8 bit display and grab colors

if !version.os_family eq 'unix' then device, pseudo = 8
device, retain = 2, decomposed = 0
window, /free, /pixmap, colors = -5
plot, [ 0 ]
wdelete, !d.window
print, 'Color table size is ', !d.table_size

;- Set graphics and widget font sizes

device, set_character_size = [ 6, 9 ]
widget_control, default_font = '7x13'

;- ensure IDL 5.0 XMANAGER behavior is consistent with IDL 4.0

xmanager, catch = 0                 
;---cut here---

Then use the system variable IDL_STARTUP to point to the full path and
name of the startup file e.g.

setenv IDL_STARTUP $HOME/idl_startup.pro (C shell)
export IDL_STARTUP=$HOME/idl_startup.pro (Korn shell)

This code will be executed every time you start a new IDL session, and
it should give you a consistent well-behaved 8 bit IDL display on all
Unix platforms (as long as your Unix desktop is set to 8 bit or 24 bit
mode: if you use a 16 bit or 32 bit desktop, all bets are off).

Cheers,
Liam.
PS: Let me know if this does not work.

-- 
Liam E. Gumley
Space Science and Engineering Center, UW-Madison
http://cimss.ssec.wisc.edu/~gumley