Solo employs a standard file naming convention for all the files it produces such as sweepfiles, boundary files, editing scripts, frame states files, etc. The file name has the form:
xxx.960405010203.RADAR.0.perhaps_a_comment_at_the_end
xxx is a prefix identifying the type of file such as "swp" for sweepfiles, "wds" for frame states files, "bnd" for boundary files, "sed" for editing scripts, etc. The second field is a time stamp and is often used for sorting files of a particular type. The third field most often contains the radar name or some other identifying ASCII string and the fourth field is the version number which in the case of sweep files is multiplexed with the milliseconds part of the time stamp. The final field is for comments. In the case of sweepfiles the first item in the comment field is the fixed angle.
Some users have been changing the file names to suit their own purposes or have file names with some of the same prefixes but not the same content. This often confuses solo and causes unpredictable results.
Before invoking Solo you need to set an environment variable which tells the program what directory your sweep files reside in. Variables may be set by entering the appropriate values at the shell prompt prior to running the software or by modifying your .login or .cshrc file. An environment variable can be set by using the standard Unix command:
setenv VARIABLE "value"Here, VARIABLE is the name of the variable to be defined, and value is the value you wish the variable to have. The variable that needs to be set at this time is the DORADE_DIR. Set it by typing the following at the prompt or adding it to your .login or .cshrc file:
setenv DORADE_DIR "/home/data/dorade"In this example the sweep files should be in /home/data/dorade. Remember that unix is case sensitive and the VARIABLE must be capitalized. For the program to function properly there must be at least one sweep file in this directory at the time of start up.
Solo is invoked by typing "solo" at the command prompt. The Solo executable resides in the directory which was specified for executables during the installation process. Make sure this directory is in your path or that you are typing the Solo command in the correct subdirectory.
Solo will initially start up with all the windows and widgets you need to run Solo and will plot a sweep of data from the DORADE_DIR directory. Plotting is done in the main NCAR_Solo_Display window. If there are no sweeps for Solo to plot in DORADE_DIR Solo will come up but the first thing you must do is to pop down the sweeps widget in frame 1, enter a directory that does have sweeps in it click the ACCEPT button and then click in the color box to cause a plot to come up in all frames. Trying to do it piecemeal does not always work.
Another useful environment variable is SOLO_WINDOW_INFO which is described under the heading "Starting Solo With Saved Window Information".
setenv SOLO_AUTO_RESCAN 1The number 1 can be ommitted for a rescan before every plot or you can make this a large number if you don't want it to rescan as often. For editing a rescan happens automatically after one or more sweeps are modified. This is unaffected by this variable.
setenv SOLO_COLORS_DIR "/home/color_tables"Points solo at a user's own dirctory containing favorite color tables.
setenv SOLO_UI_FILE "/home/ui_states_dir/solo.lf"is another file that solo needs to operate. It contains state information for the RDSS User Interface that solo uses.
There is the CANNED_COMMANDS environment variable that is described under example operations.
Information on SOLO_HELP_DIR can be found under list help info.
You can also use the control commands found in emacs to move the carrot around. For example, if the cursor is at the beginning of the line, then the whole line can be cleard by holding down the "control" key and hitting the "k" key. To quickly get to the beginning of the line hold down the "control" key and hit "a". To quickly get to the end of the line hold down the "control" key and hit "e". Holding down the "control" key and hitting a "d" deletes the next character.
This window displays an enlarged view of a solo frame. It is enabled by pressing one of the function keys F1 through F6. The F1 through F6 keys correspond to Solo frame numbers Pressing F1 will bring up an enlarged view of Frame 1. The enlarged frame may be changed to another frame by pressing a different function key, or it may be dismissed by pressing the F7 key.
Used to exit a
Solo session. Clicking on this icon requires the user to place a widget
by clicking the left mouse button once you see its outline. The widget
will prompt you for confirmation of your desire to exit the program. Click
on "Yes" to exit.
Stops the data from
plotting when using the double arrow buttons on the control bar. This
is the only way to stop the data other than the sweep files being exhausted.
The SAVE FRAMES
icon brings up the FRAME STATES
widget that enables the user to save
window information to a file and also retrieve window information of
previously saved files. This window information contains
directory and file information for each frame as well as other
control parameters for plotting. Remember that any changes
made to the Parameters, View, Colors, etc. will not be
retained when exiting Solo unless you save them to a file. The
default layout will come up when starting Solo but this can be
change by instructing Solo to start up
with a window information file.
SOLO_COLORS_DIRThis variable tells Solo where to look for its color tables. It defaults to the colors subdirectory in the Solo source tree, but it may be changed to point to a different directory:
setenv SOLO_COLORS_DIR "/home/colors"This is useful if you want to create and use your own color tables.
If you have already run Solo and saved the frame states information in a file using the SAVE FRAMES icon and the FRAME STATES widget, you can then start up Solo with this file. The file contains directory and file information for each frame as well as all other control parameters for plotting.
The environment variable SOLO_WINDOW_INFO is used to indicate the file containing saved window information. Synonyms for SOLO_WINDOW_INFO are SOLO_STATE and swi. It is not necessary to set DORADE_DIR if you're starting from a frame states file. With this environment variable you can explicitly point to a particular file and you must include the full path name or you can reference the most recent frame states file with
setenv SOLO_WINDOW_INFO /home/data/dorade/
and Solo will grab the most recent save file from this directory. It's the final slash that tells solo to look in this directory for the most recent frame states file. Leave off the final slash and solo will look for the file "dorade" in the directory "/home/data". This variable can be set in the window prior to starting solo or you can add it to your .login or .cshrc and it will be set when logging in.
There is now a batch mode available that will cause solo to start up from a frame states file and plot all the sweep files for a particular radar in the directory referenced in the frame states file. This mode is triggered with the environment variable:
setenv BATCH_MODE
If no other variables are set solo will produce GIF files in the directory containing the sweep files. Files follow the solo naming convention with a "gif." prefixed, the time of the first ray in the plot and the radar name. Since the process involves an X window dump, converting an xwd file to pnm and finally converting the pnm file to gif, other additional options with batch mode are:
setenv XWD_FILES
setenv PNM_FILES
instead of GIF files. You also can direct the images to another directory with:
setenv WINDOW_DUMP_DIR /my/window_dumps
Allows user to close widget without accepting any changes made while it was open.
Gives a listing of the saved Frame State Files in the directory listed below. Click on a file name to select it.
Clicking on this option before selecting a frame states file will cause the radar and sweep specific info to be ignored. This is useful, for example, if you want to use this file on a different radar than the one it was saved under.
Creates a file containing the current frame states and saves it in the current directory.
Shows the directory where the files will be saved to and where the Listing of current frame state files is retrieved from. This can be change to any user specified directory.
The name of the frame states file minus the comment last accessed. The filename has the form
wds.941012204415.TA43P3.6714.user_supplied_comment where first field identifies the file as a saved frame states file, the next field is the date/time when the save occurred, the next field is the radar name from the first frame, the next field is the Unix user id, and the last field is a user supplied comment. So it says when you save them, what radar you were plotting, who did it and any comment the user might wish to add. The time is GMT.
A string which gets appended to the end of the frame states file when it is saved. The comment serves as an identifier.