Usage of External Commands

Copying and moving selected files within the filesystem is foreseen in the application.

For all other activities external scripts can be created, or external binary applications can be used, provided that they accept filenames as an input. Typical examples of scripts include Bourne Shell based scripts or Midas scripts for reduction. See http://www.eso.org/observing/dfo/quality/isaac for examples.

Some care must be taken in not providing to the interpreter a command line exceeding the maximum amount of characters. This can easily happen when the amount of selected files is large and/or when the paths are very long.

If desired, the facility is provided to supply the classification of the selected files as a command line argument. Scripts can be tailored to make use of this additional information. Click on the confirm button of the Script Directory Board to see the effect.

There is currently no facility to run the external commands in the background, so Gasgano will hang, until the external command terminates. A fix will be provided soon.

External Viewers like RTD, saoimage etc. can also be called via the button on the Toolbar. Three kinds of external viewers are foreseen, and can be set via the Preferences: