Each toolkit program is started by double-clicking on the appropriate icon. A dialog box will be displayed in which the parameters and qualifiers needed to execute the program are specified. When the parameters/qualifiers have been selected, clicking on Enter causes the initial execution to begin.
For the programs that use a full-screen interface (e.g., CDFedit, CDFlist, and CDFwalk), a ``pasteboard'' window is opened in which the program displays menus, prompts, etc. When the ``pasteboard'' window is closed (by exiting the execution), the parameters/qualifiers dialog box is redisplayed. A new set of parameters/qualifiers may be selected and executed or the program may be terminated.
For the programs that simply output to the screen (e.g., CDFstats, CDFcompare, and CDFinquire), a ``standard output'' window is opened in which the output will be written. When the execution completes, the ``apple'' and File menus are available in the menu bar. Under the File menu the following commands are available:
Causes the parameters/qualifiers dialog box to be redisplayed. A new set of parameters/qualifiers may be selected and executed. The output from each execution is appended to the existing output.
Saves the current output to a file named <program-name>.so where <program-name> is the name of the program.
Saves the current output to the file specified in the standard output file dialog box that will be displayed.
Clears the current output.
Terminates the program.
The vertical scroll bar as well as the page up and page down keys may be used to scroll through the output. When a large amount of text has been written, a dialog box may be displayed indicating that an output overflow is about to occur. The output may be saved to a file before being cleared (to allow the execution to continue).
The parameters/qualifiers dialog box for each program uses the standard Macintosh controls. Edit fields are used to enter text values (e.g., the pathname of a CDF). Leaving an edit field blank is allowed in some cases (which will be noted). Check boxes are used to enable or disable a qualifier. An X in the check box indicates that the qualifier is enabled. Radio buttons are used in groups to allow one of several options to be chosen for a qualifier. Generally, only one of the radio buttons in a group may be selected.
Several types of files are specified to the toolkit programs. These consist of CDFs, skeleton tables, and output files. In a parameters/qualifiers dialog box edit field or a toolkit program's prompt field a file must be specified using a full or partial pathname. Full pathnames consist of a volume name (which is also the corresponding folder name), zero or more folder names, and finally the file name (with or without an extension). These are all separated by semi-colons (:'s). Partial pathnames do not start with a volume name and may start with or without a semi-colon. If a partial pathname starts with a semi-colon, one or more folder names will follow, each separated by a semi-colon, followed by the file name. The first folder must exist in the currently selected folder. If a partial pathname starts without a semi-colon, then only a file name should be present and the file is (or will be) located in the currently selected folder. To ease in the selection of files in parameters/qualifiers dialog boxes, the corresponding edit fields are followed by a Select button. When clicked on, a standard input/output file dialog will be displayed in which a file may be specified. When that has been done the pathname of the selected file will appear in the edit field.
A directory/wildcard
specification is allowed
for some of the CDF
specifications required by the toolkit programs. This allows more than one
of the CDFs in a directory to be selected. If a CDF specification
ends with a folder name, then all of the CDFs in that folder will have
been specified. A trailing semi-colon is not required (but may be present).
The supported wildcard characters are the asterick (*) which matches
zero or more characters and the question mark (?) which matches
exactly one character.
In the following sections the available qualifiers and options for each of the toolkit programs will be presented. The default settings for these qualifiers and options will not be shown since they can be configured for a particular CDF distribution. When a program is started, the settings shown in the initial parameters/qualifiers dialog box are the default qualifiers for your CDF distribution.
NOTE: You may find it necessary to increase the partition size available to a toolkit program when dealing with very large CDFs. You can do this by editing the ``current size'' field of the window opened when using the Get Info item of the File menu (from the Desktop menu bar) on the toolkit executable.