PHYS-4007/5007 Course IDL Web Home Page

This web page contains the links of the various IDL procedure files that students in PHYS-4007/5007 can use to carry out their homework and use on their exams. The files here are in standard ASCII (text) format so that when you click on the link, the code will appear in your web browser. Follow these steps to save these files on your Windows machine.

Open the Notepad editor by selecting the Windows icon on the lower left of your computer screen, then click on the "All Programs" item. Once the list of programs appears, select "Accessories" then "Notepad." This utility is the standard Windows text (i.e., ASCII) editor.
Go to your web browser and highlight all of the text on the screen using the "Edit" pull-down menu and clicking "Select All."
Go back to the "Edit" pull-down menu and select "Copy."
Go to the Notepad window and select the "Edit" pull-down menu and select "Paste."
From the Notepad window, go to the "File" pull-down and select "Save As ..." Find the directory (i.e., folder) where you want to store this file. Finally enter the file name of the file making sure that you use '.pro' instead of '.txt' as the filename suffix and that you enclose your filename in double quotes (e.g., "sampleplot.pro") If you do not include the double quotes, Notepad will attach a '.txt' at the end of your filename (which you do not want to do).

Dr. Luttermoser's IDL Files for Download

Note that as the semester progresses, additional IDL procedure files will be included on this web page.

sampleplot.pro	IDL procedure to generate plots
mycode2.pro	Sample IDL procedure to generate hardcopy plots
erranal.pro	IDL procedure to demonstrate errors
lsquaresprojectile.pro	IDL procedure to demonstrate linear least-squares analysis
myfft.pro	IDL procedure to demonstrate Fast Fourier Transforms (FFT)
specfft.pro	IDL procedure to demonstrate FFT with an observed spectrum
stustartup.pro	IDL procedure to run on IDL startup (see below)
workdir.pro	IDL procedure to select a current working directory

The stustartup.pro procedure is used to compile and run procedures upon start up in IDL. One should activate this file through the following steps:

Create a directory in your login directory (here assumed to be named C:\home) called idl.

CD to this diectory and make a subdirectory called startup.

CD to the startup directory and place this file (named stustartup.pro) and workdir.pro into the startup directory.

Open IDL Workbench. Once the GUI appears, select the "Window" pull-down menu near the top of the GUI and select the "Preferences" item (at the bottom).

Once the "Preferences" GUI appears, select "IDL" on the left side list.

In this GUI, put the complete path/file name of this procedure in the "Startup file" box: e.g., C:\home\idl\startup\stustartup.pro .

In the "Initial working directory" box, I suggest the inserting the following: C:\home\idl (again asumming your login directory is "C:\home".

Click the "Apply" button followed by the "OK" button.

Exit out of the IDL Workbench utility, then restart IDL. Once the login is complete, a GUI should appear asking you to select a working directory (C:\home\idl should be highlighted). Chose whatever diecrtory you want to work.

Then any software you need to open or create will easily be found and any hardcopy graphics you create will be located in that directory.

Students, make sure you change the string for the MYDEFDIR in workdir.pro to reflect your preferred initial working directory on your machine for workdir to start its search from for a current working directory.

Click here to go back to the Computational Physics home page.

Last modified: November 22, 2011 by D.G. Luttermoser