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.

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
Options for loading files and commands.

--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.[a]

--pathdir

 The name of a directory

Add a directory to the Python search path, so that OOF2 can import modules from it.[a]

--autoload

  

Automatically load all OOF2 extension modules found in the EXTENSIONS directory.

--command

text

Evaluate the given OOF2 Python command. Any valid Python expression can be given. It must be in quotation marks if it contains spaces.[a]

Options controlling the user interface

--text

  

Turn off graphics mode.

--geometry

width x height

Specify the initial size, in pixels, of the main OOF2 window.

--gtk

gtk options

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

--quiet

  

Quit quietly when done, without confirmation.

--batch

  

Quit immediately after running scripts (implies --text and --no-bars).

--no-bars

  

Don't show progress bars when in text mode. This is useful if output is being redirected to a file.

Miscellaneous options.

--help

  

Display valid options, then quit.

--version

  

Display version number, then quit.

--seed

integer

Seed for the random number generator.
Debugging options, which you probably won't need.

--debug

  

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

--no-rc

  

Don't read the .oof2rc file when starting up.

--unthreaded

  

Don't use multiple execution threads.[c]

--record

file name

Record all user interaction with the GUI in the given log file. Used for generating the GUI tests.

--replay

file name

Replay the GUI session stored in the given log file, which must have been recorded with --record. Used when running GUI tests.

--replaydelay

integer

Approximate time delay in milliseconds to insert between lines when replaying a recorded GUI log file.

--no-checkpoints

  

Ignore synchronizing checkpoints when replaying a GUI log file. Not recommended.

--fakefileselector

 

Don't use the real file selector widget, which causes problems when replaying GUI logs.[d]

--no-fakefileselector

 

Use the real file selector widget, even though it causes problems when replaying GUI logs.[d]

--separate-dialogs

Separate dialog boxes from their parent windows. Useful when taking screen shots of dialogs.

[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.

[d] If neither --fakefileselector nor --no-fakefileselector is given, the fake file selector will be used when recording or replaying GUI logs, and the real file selector will be used at all other times.


1.2.1. Modes of Operation, Menus, and Commands

OOF2 has two modes of operation: the normal graphics mode, driven by a graphical user interface (GUI); and a text mode, invoked by starting the program with the --text option. OOF2 can be conceptually split into two parts: a computational back end and the GUI front end. The difference between the text and GUI modes of operation is that in GUI mode the front end transmits commands to the back end, and in text mode the user types those same commands, or has the program read them from a file. Batch mode, invoked by starting OOF2 with the --batch option, is a variant of text mode in which commands are only read from input files and there is no user interaction.

OOF2 commands are expressions in the Python programming language. They are arranged in hierachical menus, which are described in detail in The Main OOF Menu. The root of the hierarchy is the python object OOF. Commands all have the form 

	      OOF.Menu.SubMenu.Command(argument=value, ...)

There may be multiple levels of submenus, or none at all, and there may be any (non-negative) number of arguments. The format of each command is described in detail in Chapter 6. In general, however, you won't want to run OOF2 in text mode. The commands can be quite long, and typing them yourself might be tedious. Instead, use the GUI to save a script, edit the script if necessary, and reload it in GUI or batch mode. The scripts are processed by Python so you can freely add Python code to them.

1.2.2. The .oof2rc File

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.

1.2.3. 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 default location of this file is operating system dependent, but it will be in the default directory for temporary files on your system unless you override the default by setting the OOFTMP environment variable. /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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