Overview

The McIDAS-X library functions presented in this chapter are the building blocks for your applications programs. These functions abstract the hardware, such as the display, keyboard and pointing device, and provide routines for manipulating scalar quantities, such as dates and latitudes.

When a user starts a McIDAS-X session, a display similar to the one shown in Figure 4-1 appears on the screen. The window in the foreground is the McIDAS-X Text and Command Window. The window in the background is the McIDAS-X Image Window.

Figure 4-1. At start-up, the McIDAS-X display contains the McIDAS-X Text and Command Window and the McIDAS-X Image Window.

The visual output of your programs is displayed on these windows. Input is received from the keyboard via the command line and from the pointing device, or mouse, via the Image Window and cursor. Applications also make use of the terminal characteristics, the state of the McIDAS-X session and the application environment.

The functions described in this chapter are grouped by the tasks they perform:

User interface utilities
The user interface utilities include the functions for extracting numeric and text values from the command line and reporting the position and button state of the pointing device.
Display utilities
The display utilities include the functions for displaying text, images and graphics on the McIDAS-X windows, and obtaining information about the McIDAS-X display.
System utilities
The system utilities include functions for determining the terminal characteristics and the state of the McIDAS-X session, such as the number of color levels and frames, and for making applications interact predictably with the operating system, the McIDAS-X session and other applications such as error handling and file locks.
Conversion utilities
The conversion utilities include the functions for performing
byte-level and character string manipulations on data buffers, and for converting day and time, latitude and longitude, and physical units such as speed and temperature.
Scientific utilities
The scientific utilities include the functions for computing meteorological parameters, such as mixing ratio and stability indices.

For additional information about the functions described in this chapter, see the online man pages provided with the McIDAS-X software.

For information about calling Fortran-coded functions from C, see the section titled McIDAS developer overview in Chapter 2, Learning the Basics.

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