Figure 3: Main Menu
The UDF analysis program is invoked as:
UDFAnalysis [MenuFile]
The MenuFile command line argument is optional. If present is the saved set of options from a previous run of UDFAnalysis. Starting UDFAnalysis with a MenuFile preloads the UDFAnalysis menus with the settings stored in the file.
On startup the program brings up the GUI shown in Figure 3. If invoked with a MenuFile the menu file name will be displayed in both the Input and Save Menu entry boxes, otherwise these fields are blank as above. This menu is the springboard to the full set of menus and options available within the UDFAnalysis frame work. The options in this menu are described below.
The RUN button begins execution of the program. Full execution should only be started once all applicable menus and options have been filled in. Execution includes reading in data, running all selected functions, and plotting and dumping selected results. RUN does not perform a menu save operation.
Quits and exits the program. This does not save any changes to the current menu made after the last menu save operation.
The name of the file which contains the menu options saved from a previous run of the UDFAnalysis program. Click the Load button to the right to load the options into the current menu. NOTE: If the saved file contained unfilled options those may still need to be defined before running the application.
Hitting a return in the menu file entry box after you have typed in the file name will echo it down into the Save Menu box. If you are not loading options from a pre-existing save file there is no need to enter anything here.
The name of the file which the current state of the menu options will be saved. Click the Save button to the right to save the current state of the menus to the file. The Save operation works on incomplete menu definitions. You can save at anytime during the process of filling in the various menus. NOTE: Saving to an existing file overwrites whatever was currently in the file without warning.
If the input and save file names are the same, saving will update the old options. If you wish to make changes to the menu but not loose the original menu settings the save file name must be different from the input file name.
A free form text field which can be used to describe the purpose and contents of the menu definition.
Invokes the GUI menu containing the timing options. These basically defines the timing grid by setting its beginning and ending time as well as its cell resolution.
Invokes the GUI menu used define the importing of external variables. External variables can have a UDF/IDFS or an ASCII source. The link between data and the variable names used to define the data within the UDFAnalysis framework is set up here.
Invokes the GUI menu containing the set of plugins available to manipulate the data.
Invokes the GUI menu which defines all of the general plot characteristics. This includes the plot window size, the background color, grid overlay definitions and color table.
Invokes the GUI menu which defines all of the plot specific characteristics. Most of this deals with the placement of the plot within the overall plot window, axis scaling options, and annotation options. This menu does not populate the plots with data. That occurs in the PLOT DEFINITION menu.
Invokes the GUI menu which links variables with plots. (Plots are defined in the Plots Layout menu).
Invokes the GUI menu links labels to plots.