20010319: problems running Fkey menu under eXceed 7.0 (cont.)

>From: Edward Hindman <address@hidden>
>Organization: CCNY
>Keywords: 200103161646.f2GGkcL03926 McIDAS 7.7x Windows eXceed7.0

Ward,

re: new Linux box is only a 300 Mhz machine
>Tom:  We'll have to make due because our NSF lab upgrade funding request 
>was denied. 

OK.  I was just hoping that there might be a more robust machine that
you could press into service in your department.

re: eXceed 7.0
I asked around this morning and found that nobody in Unidata is using
eXceed anymore, so I won't be able to replicate your problem here.

re: starting the Fkey menu from the McIDAS Text and Command window
>Tom:  As you predicted, the exact same behavior occurred.  The F-key 
>window came up blank and disappeared when clicked on. 

Nuts!

re: finding out what X visuals are supported by eXceed 7.
>Tom:  This is work that Eddy will do.

OK.  One additional recommendation would be to see if the available
visuals are different between the eXceed 6 and 7 versions.

re: displaying the images from the command window.
>Tom:  This series of commands did indeed bring up the current GOES-East 
>image.  So, we can operate from the command line.

OK.  The reason I asked you to try this was to make sure that it would
work.  This narrows down the problem to being only related to the Fkey
menu.

>But, I want to 
>introduce the students to McIDAS through the F-key menu and your helpful 
>GUI's first.

I understand and agree.  If the system that is running the McIDAS sessions
has the halo file system that contains the data mounted, and if each
user's McIDAS session has the set of REDIRECTions that will allow for
direct read of those NFS mounted data files, then the students could
use the MCGUI instead of the Fkey menu.  The reason I include all of the
'IF's is you commented that you could not run LA or DF.  If you can't run
these commands, then the files are not accessible in one way or another
so the MCGUI will not work.  This may be the easiest thing to fix since
it should be simply a matter of setting up an NFS mount and a set of
REDIRECTions to the data files.

Have you tried starting the MCGUI?  It may fail to start if the data
files are really not accessible since it needs to read the SYSKEY.TAB
file to get information on currently available data.  Again, making
this available is a matter of setting up the NFS mount and a set of
REDIRECTions in each user's account.  This is easily done by:

<as the user 'mcidas'>

cd ~mcidas/data
cp EXAMPLE.NAM LOCAL.NAM
<edit LOCAL.NAM and setup the proper directory for each data file listed>

<as each user>

start a McIDAS-X session
REDIRECT REST LOCAL.NAM

After this, SYSKEY.TAB and all of the data files should be found and
the MCGUI should work.

>Thank you

You are welcome.

Tom

>From address@hidden Mon Mar 19 15:52:12 2001
>Subject: Re: 20010316: Help with McIDAS class assignment 

Dear Tom:

I have worked through all your suggested ADDE commands and they work 
nicely.  Thank you for pointing out the SSEC (the students will be going 
to the McIDAS archives there later via ftp).  Finally, your interactive 
IMGPROBE is really helpful.

Sincerely,

Ward Hindman
CCNY