Application Development in IDL II


Location:      NCNR, Large conference room
Date:            February 3-5, 2003

This three-day training course is a continuation of the course titled Application Development in IDL I .  In this course, we will discuss the techniques involved in writing a complex multi-module program.  We will focus on how to gather information from the user and communicate this information (data) between the various modules.  We will also discuss how you can get your module to ‘plug in’ to DAVE , the NCNR’s Data Analysis and Visualization Environment.

This is an interactive training session so each attendee will be writing programs at his/her own workstation.  Before the course we will help you to configure your computer to run IDL .  You will need to set up your computer in the large conference room before the class begins.  We are limiting the course to eight individuals.  Due to the limited number of attendees, please sign up early if you are interested.  This training session counts for formal training.


If you are interested in taking this course and/or have any questions, please contact Rob Dimeo (ext. 8135).

Course documentation (PDF-1.5 MB)
This course documentation is going to be followed quite closely during the class. You can view the documentation here if you wish but you will also receive a bound copy a few weeks before the course begins.

You can download all of the examples that are discussed in the book from the link below. They are a collection of IDL programs that have been zipped.

Course programs (67 kB)

Writing a Widget Application

Review of event-driven programming and widgets
Passing program information around: structures and pointers
Gathering information from users:  modal and non-modal dialogs

Combining Objects and Widgets

A pedestrian approach to objects in IDL:  encapsulation, inheritance, and polymorphism
Combining objects and widgets: object widgets (OW)
The advantages of programming your application with OW
Modal and non-modal dialogs in OW applications

Writing a large-scale widget application

Combining multiple small applications into a larger application
Plugging your standalone module into DAVE

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