Starting IDL
The easiest way to start IDL is by launching the IDL Workbench, which is an Eclipse-based graphical user interface.
You can also run IDL in command-line mode, which uses a text-only interface and sends output to your terminal screen or shell window.
IDL is available in both 32- and 64-bit versions for Windows and a 64-bit version for Macintosh and Linux. You can execute the 64-bit version only if your system supports 64-bit operations, but you can run the 32-bit Windows version on a 64-bit Windows system. See Command-line Options for IDL Startup for details.
The following table lists the various ways to launch IDL:
|
|
|
Mode
|
|
Operating
System
|
32-/64-bit
Executable
|
Workbench
|
Command-line
|
|
Windows
|
32-bit
|
On 32-bit platforms:
Start > IDL x.x > IDL
On 64-bit platforms:
Start > IDL x.x > Tools > IDL (32-bit)
|
On 32-bit platforms:
Start > IDL x.x > Tools > IDL Command Line
On 64-bit platforms:
Start > IDL x.x > Tools > IDL Command Line (32-bit)
|
|
|
64-bit
|
Start > IDL x.x > IDL
|
Start > IDL x.x > Tools > IDL Command Line
|
|
Macintosh
|
64-bit
|
Double-click on the idl icon in your IDL installation folder
or
Enter idlde at the X11 Terminal window shell prompt
|
Click on the idl icon in your IDL installation folder
or
Enter idl at the X11 Terminal window shell prompt
|
|
Linux
|
64-bit
|
Enter idlde at the shell prompt
|
Enter idl at the shell prompt
|
|
|
|
To launch IDL from the shell prompt, you must first explicitly open a terminal window and set up each IDL user's environment.
|
Quitting IDL
To quit IDL, type EXIT at the IDL command prompt.