OOF2: The Manual

1.2. Running OOF2
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1.2. Running OOF2

At this point, you should have an executable file named “oof2” in a bin directory in your execution path. You can now simply type oof2 at your shell prompt, and OOF2 will start up. (Macintosh OS X users will have to start X11 before starting OOF2. Then OOF2 can be started in an xterm window, or in a Terminal window if the DISPLAY environment variable has been set correctly, probably to :0.0.)

OOF2 has many command line options, shown in Table 1.2. Options may be typed after oof2 when starting the program. The options may be abbreviated, as long as the abbreviation is unique. The double dashes before each option are required. An equals sign between options and their arguments is optional.

Table 1.2. OOF2 Command Line Options

Option Argument Description

--script

filename

Load a Python script.[a]

--image

filename

Load an Image and create a Microstructure from it.[a] [b]

--data

filename

Load an OOF2 data file .[a]

--import

module name

Load a Python extension module.

--text

  

Turn off graphics mode.

--help

  

Display valid options, then quit.

--version

  

Display version number, then quit.

--gtk

gtk options

Extra options for graphics mode, passed to the gtk+ library.

--seed

integer

Seed for the random number generator.

--quiet

  

Quit quietly when done, without confirmation.

--batch

  

Quit immediately after running scripts (implies --text).

--debug

  

Turn on debugging mode (increased verbosity, and seed=17).

--unthreaded

  

Don't use multiple execution threads.[c]

[a] This option may be present more than once. Files will be loaded in the order in which they are listed.

[b] See OOF.Microstructure.Create_From_ImageFile.

[c] Threading allows multiple tasks to be performed simultaneously. Using --unthreaded makes the GUI unresponsive during computations, but is useful for debugging some kinds of problems.


1.2.1. The .oof2rc File

All actions in OOF2 are expressed in terms of menu commands, which are enumerated explicitly in The Main OOF Menu. If you want to run a set of commands automatically each time OOF2 starts, you can place them in a file called .oof2rc in your home directory. Good commands to put in this file are those that control graphics window defaults, or the GUI theme and fonts.

1.2.2. In Case of Difficulty

If something goes wrong while you're running OOF2, you'll be told about it and given the choice of continuing, or aborting the program. In GUI mode, a dialog box like the one shown in Figure 1.1 will appear. If the error is yours (e.g, a data file is missing, or you specified incompatible boundary conditions) then it's safe to click OK and continue. If the problem is ours, and is due to a bug in OOF2, you may want to click Abort to quit the program. Please file a bug report!

Figure 1.1. The Error Dialog Box

The Error Dialog Box

If you abort OOF2 from the error dialog, or if something goes seriously wrong and it aborts itself, a log file will be saved automatically. The location of this file is operating system dependent, but it will always be in the default directory for temporary files on your system. /tmp is a good place to start looking. The file will be named oof2-XXXXX.py or XXXXX-oof2.py, where XXXXX is a random string of characters that guarantees that the filename is unique. If you report a bug, please include the log file.

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