Igor Pro Wish List
hrodstein
Note: This discussion is for Igor Pro suggestions only. To make suggestions for IgorExchange.com, please see the IgorExchange.com Wish List discussion.
Both Adam Light and I have developed nice tabcontrol packages, that minimize the code needed to show and hide controls as tabs are clicked. Both work by making databases of which controls belong to which tab of a tab control.
I think it would be nice if there was better support for that built right into Igor Pro. That is the methods to make and use tab control databases should be built into Igor Pro. You should be able to select controls for each tab from the dialog for editing tabcontrols, and the function to show and hide controls for each tab should be compiled C code part of Igor and run automatically when the tab control is used, with provisions for user overrides and additions, of course.
Dr. Jamie Boyd, Ph.D.
UBC In Vitro Imaging Core
August 20, 2007 at 10:23 am - Permalink
I would like to have the ability to use a two-character extension with the /T flag of the OPEN operation. For example, /T=".LP"
Charlie DeJoseph
Air Force Research Lab
Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio
August 23, 2007 at 06:17 am - Permalink
Yeah, I know this is a fairly long-standing 'feature request' that requires an enormous amount of re-coding on the part of Wavemetrics, but I still think it's important to emphasize how lovely it would be to not have to deal with imported data folders with 'corrupted' filenames or truncated wave names in the Data Browser. As of right now this is, by far, the most common reason my functions & procedures break. Probably more of a sad comment on my Igor programming skills then anything else.
Chris
August 25, 2007 at 02:31 am - Permalink
August 28, 2007 at 01:41 pm - Permalink
followed by the equivalent of ...
would then automatically set the units with superscripting. One could then programmatically change super/subscripted units without needing to change the entire axis label.
Also, in the Information that appears for waves in the Data Browser, the units of the wave scaling are shown, however the units of the data contents of the wave are not. The latter would be helpful for reviewing non-scaled data (such as might be used to plot a wave of density versus a wave of atomic mass).
September 3, 2007 at 05:43 pm - Permalink
e.g.
function myfitfunc(w,yy,xx,dx)
Wave w,yy,xx,dx
//set y as a function of x and dx
//dx cannot be passed in directly at the moment.
end
September 16, 2007 at 08:50 pm - Permalink
Andy- you're not the first to ask for this. Selecting the data sets would represent a significant effort in writing the GUI so I haven't tackled it yet. I've also been asked for structure fit functions in Global Fit, which is even harder :)
At the moment I'm engaged in a top-to-bottom re-write of the multi-peak fit package...
September 28, 2007 at 09:48 am - Permalink
Link scalewave waveA, .... , [waveN] [as waveset1, ... wavesetN]A simple example is that
Display wave1 vs scalewavewould work as
Link scalewave wave1 as waveset1 Display waveset1or even simply
Link scalewave, waveA Display waveAThis would help streamline code that otherwise requires explicitly branching to different nomenclature in cases of scaled versus unscaled waves.
October 1, 2007 at 12:47 pm - Permalink
I don't want to use per unit absolute scaling because I want to be able to zoom in on arbitrary areas.
If I use plan mode this is easy enough to do when axes have unit scaling.
If I change the scaling, I can reset plan mode so that pixels remain square.
But I can't find a way to make it work for log axes, because the axis range isn't linearly related to the number of image pixels, so when I zoom in the pixels end up being rectangular.
So I'm looking for something like the ModifyGraph height or width plan mode that keeps image pixels square, regardless of axis scaling.
I can think of workarounds involving multiple axes, but they're ugly.
October 11, 2007 at 12:18 pm - Permalink
My sense is that code for advanced algorithms such as those offered within Igor is commonly available and what distinguishes good programs is their ability to make these advanced algorithms available to a less-specialized audience. There is a much larger community of users who would apply these techniques if they had help.
Even for people with more experience, ease of use counts. For example, I almost never use Igor to integrate ODEs "casually" (i.e., just to quickly see what the solution looks like) because it is much faster to do this in Maple. On the other hand, Igor is my first choice for curve fits because it's so fast (even before QuickFit).
Of course, WM has limited resources, and one role a user community can play is in suggesting priorities. Of the capabilities that would best benefit from menu support, my vote for immediate priority would perhaps go to "optimize", as it is a common numerical operation, is complex to set up (requiring external function, specification of tolerances, methods, constraints), and often needs to be done in an exploratory, interactive way.
John Bechhoefer
Department of Physics
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, BC, Canada
October 20, 2007 at 12:10 pm - Permalink
Request for New /W=(...) Behavior
As I posted on the Igor Pro mailing list, I would like to be able to use PLATFORM-AGNOSTIC, RELATIVE sizing values to set window and panel positions. As an example ...
NewPanel/W=[50,5,95,95] ...
(or an equivalent) ... would put up a panel occupying the right 50% of the screen and a graph occupying the left 50% of the screen, with 5% offsets all around the screen edges, regardless of MacOS or WinXX system used.
Also, the behavior of /W=(...) for the above two commands (as well as Edit/W=(...)) is currently inconsistent between panels and graphs. In graphs (and tables), the /W=(...) inputs are required in points, whereas in panels, the inputs are required in pixels. Conversion is via
On MacOS, ScreenResolution usually *always* returns 72. Therefore, graphs and panels defined with /W=(10,10,100,100) will always both be the same size. On WinXX, ScreenResolution can return 96 or 120 (or some other funky value), so that /W=(10,10,100,100) graphs and panels will be different sizes. This (platform+object)-dependent behavior plays havoc when trying to code object-placement routines that are both general purpose and cross-platform compatible.
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J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAH
January 3, 2008 at 01:42 pm - Permalink
Feature Requests for Edit Windows/Procedure Files
Procedure edit windows have buttons to Show Info, Lock/Unlock, and Magnify Window (in addition to popup menus). Also having a button to Save Procedure would be helpful.
In addition, perhaps procedures could be Password Protected against editing, not just locked.
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J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAH
January 10, 2008 at 01:14 pm - Permalink
February 2, 2008 at 05:49 pm - Permalink
+1
Generally speaking, there are a lot of potential improvements to Igor GUI capabilities.
The idea is to be able to develop "applications embedded into the application" (in-app-app).
User development must be perfectly integrated into the Igor environment and one should not be able to say whether or not a panel (or any other piece of GUI) is built-in or programmatically added.
February 5, 2008 at 05:39 am - Permalink
Everything should be thread safe so that we could add some highly threaded XOPs dealing whith the asynchronous nature of the real world!
February 5, 2008 at 05:42 am - Permalink
I'm afraid you will need to keep dreaming for some time.
Anything relating to the user interface (all windows) is not happening any time soon.
February 5, 2008 at 07:57 am - Permalink
Feature Request to Hide Procedure File Names
As I develop more stuff, my list of included procedure files is beginning to over-flow to a frustrating level.
I am aware that procedures developed as Independent Modules do not normally show in the list, however Independent Modules have their own limitations in interacting with other packages. I am also aware, I could lump all my code into one long procedure file, however that is also limiting in development.
I would therefore like to have another way to hide the name of a procedure file from being shown in the Windows: Procedure Windows menu list (ie, #pragma ListName='normal (default)' or 'hidden'). This would also serve as a first step to keep the procedure from accidentally being changed by other users, since it would not show up in their lists either.
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J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAH
February 11, 2008 at 03:40 pm - Permalink
Jeff:
Have you looked at DisplayHelpTopic "Invisible Procedure Files"?
February 11, 2008 at 04:03 pm - Permalink
And therein I find ...
... which I will argue only goes to show that I am still not an advanced enough Igor programmer :-)
Thanks!!!!
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J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAH
February 11, 2008 at 04:26 pm - Permalink
I've played with this option a bit more. My request still stands for being able to have a #pragma directive within a procedure file itself as a less problematic way to hide the procedure file from showing in the procedure menu list.
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J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAH
March 13, 2008 at 11:27 am - Permalink
So, I propose the following additional syntax for controls:
pos+={x,y}
In contrast to pos={x,y}, the += syntax would just move the control x and y pixels away from the default position as guessed by Igor. Since Igor's guesses always depend on the controls that came before the controls in question, this would always put my controls in the correct place with little effort. In fact, writing the code for a new panel would be as simple as ignoring all the "pos" keywords in my controls on the first pass, then looking at the mostly reasonable Igor-generated locations, and then adding a few pos+={x,y} additions to controls as needed. This syntax is not unprecedented, as ListBoxes already have both width= and width+= keywords for a slightly different application.
March 22, 2008 at 04:08 pm - Permalink
This layout manager would control all the resizing aspects, etc.
This would be a hell of a lot of work, but well worth it in the end. I even reckon it would be possible to do something in an IGOR procedure that would achieve this, but one would have to be a smokin' programmer.
March 22, 2008 at 07:16 pm - Permalink
To which I add the request for a command of the style ...
ModifyPanel origin={x,y}
as a way to set a "default position" (origin) for such pos+={x,y} commands.
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J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAH
March 24, 2008 at 06:43 am - Permalink
Request Change in New:Notebook Dialog Box
I request an improvement be made in the New:Notebook dialog box to include the ability to set Title AND Name, KILL status, and Show/Hide Ruler (when formatted is selected) up front. Additions in the dialog box for setting left, right, top, bottom coordinates (or perhaps just width and height) would also be appreciated.
An IgorMenuHook code segment that shows part of this is here. A package that shows a sample desired format is here.
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J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAH
March 26, 2008 at 01:48 pm - Permalink
An package that addresses this issue using functions (rather than operations) is now posted as Link Display.
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J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAH
April 10, 2008 at 07:26 am - Permalink
Request Features in Data Browser
The following would be useful as settings in the preferences:
1) A checkbox to Show/Hide the Packages folder
2) A way to sort ascending/descending over two or three sequentially selectable options, ie three rows of two popups ...
1st -> [Name/Creation Date/Modification Date/Type] -> [Ascending / Descending]
2nd -> [Name/Creation Date/Modification Date/Type] -> [Ascending / Descending]
3rd -> [Name/Creation Date/Modification Date/Type] -> [Ascending / Descending]
Having these settings remembered across all instances and being able to set/change them programmatically would be great too!
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J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAH
May 19, 2008 at 12:18 pm - Permalink
What would the second and third menus do?
And are you referring to the Data Browser (from the Data menu) or to the Dialog Wave Browser that appears in various dialogs?
John Weeks
WaveMetrics, Inc.
support@wavemetrics.com
May 21, 2008 at 01:20 pm - Permalink
I am referring to the Data Browser. The second (and third and ...) menu selections would allow sequential sorting, first on names, then on creation dates, then on ...
Now that I think about it for this case, since data folders cannot contain objects of the same name, I am likely thinking of a situation where "hiding" of parent folders is possible, so that a DataFolder structure ...
root
. Set01
.. file01 (2008.May.12)
.. file02 (2008.May.12)
. Set02
.. file01 (2008.May.15)
.. file02 (2008.May.15)
could be "collapsed" to show just the (sequentially sorted) waves ...
.. file01 (2008.May.12)
.. file01 (2008.May.15)
.. file02 (2008.May.12)
.. file02 (2008.May.15)
(perhaps I've been spending too much time at my PDA ToDo list ... :-) )
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J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAH
May 22, 2008 at 02:06 pm - Permalink
June 9, 2008 at 05:03 pm - Permalink
Check for Structure
I have a procedure file A that only serves to define a structure GlobalParams. I have another procedure file B that includes a function UseGPStructure to access the structure. The problem is, I also want procedure file B to be able to stand on its own (ie, not have to #include "A").
Most likely, I would like a way to check for a STRUCTURE so as to do ...
Function UseGPStructure(gPS)
STRUCT GlobalParams &gPS
...
end
#endif
As a work-around, I might put an empty static function at the top of procedure file A (as a module) and check for its existence.
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J. J. Weimer
Chemistry / Chemical & Materials Engineering, UAH
June 19, 2008 at 12:24 pm - Permalink
July 21, 2008 at 01:08 pm - Permalink
1. It would be nice to be able to use the data browser in such a way that it limits which waves it displays based on a user-entered string. I typically have a lot of waves in a given experiment, so browsing through all of them to find the ones I want for graphing or curve-fitting can be tedious, especially since there is no scroll-functionality via the mouse wheel. Instead, I have to click on the arrows and hold it while it scrolls. I'd like to enter the part of my waves' names that is unique to subset of waves so that only those waves are displayed.
2. Curve fitting parameter memory- why is it that in Igor 6, when I curve fit, and want to go back to change a setting (say which function I use, or the fit range) I have to manually reselect my x and y waves, as well as any weighting waves? Igor 4 did not do this, it kept the previous waves in memory. Is there an option that I am somehow missing here?
3. A better/easier way to control font sizes in Annotations. It gets tedious to manually have to enter tags to enlarge or shrink fonts over and over again. Again, maybe I am missing out on already existing functionality.
July 30, 2008 at 02:53 pm - Permalink
I would live being able to load 24bit binary sample files, not only the 8-16-32 bit samples.
thanks!
August 7, 2008 at 07:03 am - Permalink
Hm. It's supposed to remember them. Perhaps you could send me a detailed example illustrating the problem. You would probably need to send me an experiment file with the data, also.
John Weeks
WaveMetrics, Inc.
support@wavemetrics.com
August 8, 2008 at 04:29 pm - Permalink
After a million instances of if(StringMatch(str,value)), I would like to be able to use if(str===value), which is a few characters faster and improves readability of code. == would be fine, too.
Rick
August 12, 2008 at 01:09 pm - Permalink
August 14, 2008 at 08:56 am - Permalink
I looked into this but it looks to be pretty painful. It might be easier to make SetVariable look and act like a CheckBox.
I suggest not using any global object -- just query the CheckBoxes directly.
August 16, 2008 at 06:13 am - Permalink
Structure MyControlPanel
uchar Checkbox[10]
float SetVariable[5]
int reserved[100]
EndStructure
And then access with MyControlPanel.Checkbox[i]. The decision here would be how to determine that array index "i" corresponds to the checkbox for, e.g. "High-Pass Filter". I suppose this information could also be stored in the structure, or possibly in the window user information. Any thoughts?
August 20, 2008 at 01:55 pm - Permalink
I've taken to using a method similar to what's found in the GetGrfBrowserGlobals() function of GraphBrowser.ipf. You may need to issue the following on the command line to be able to view this procedure, since it's an independent module.
The actual data values are stored in global variables within a data folder, but a structure is used to make accessing them in control action procedures and other functions quite easy.
August 20, 2008 at 05:03 pm - Permalink
I am always changing graphs from names like "Figure5A" to "Figure 5C", and I want this to reflect in the layout "Figure5". A huge time-saver for producing figures for journal articles, a process which usually involves changing figure panels and locations a zillion times before submission.
Rick
August 22, 2008 at 02:05 pm - Permalink
You might be able to do what you want to do by creating a named hook function (structure based) that responds to the "renamed" event. You'd want to make sure that all graph windows in your experiment are attached to this hook. That's easy to do for graphs that already exist. For future graphs, you can either add this hook to the graph after you create it from a function, or use the AfterWindowCreatedHook.
August 22, 2008 at 03:13 pm - Permalink
Well I'm not sure if this is the first item on this wish list to be fulfilled, but in yesterday's mailing list digest I happened across this happy news from a certain Howard Rodstein:
To which I say Huzzah ! This is absolutely brilliant news & I would like to sincerely thank Wavemetrics & Howard for doing something that must have been extraordinarily painful. I will be alpha-testing this version immediately & with great joy.
Chris
EPFL/PSI
Swiss Light Source
Switzerland
August 30, 2008 at 07:24 am - Permalink
You can do this by loading the data as unsigned byte data and then combining the bytes. Assuming that wave0 is unsigned byte, this will combine it into wave1:
Variable numBytes = numpnts(wave0)
Variable numPoints = numBytes / 3
Make/O/S/N=(numPoints) wave1 = wave0[3*p+0] + 256*wave0[3*p+1] + 65536*wave0[3*p+2]
This assumes that your original data was little-endian (least-significant byte first). If it was big-ending, swap the
+0" and the "+2".
Also this assumes that your data was unsigned. If it was signed then you need a more complex approach that tests the high bit of the high byte to determine the sign.
September 3, 2008 at 03:25 pm - Permalink
It will track it if you can remember to recreate the layout before changing the graph name.
September 3, 2008 at 03:31 pm - Permalink
It was pretty painful. It took two months and thousands of changes to the program. I'm glad to have it behind me. Now we'll see how many bugs I introduced in the process.
September 3, 2008 at 03:33 pm - Permalink
Sorry, I don't understand what you are saying here. If I recreate the layout before changing the graph name, I have an identical copy of the layout I had before, which still won't update other than to show an empty placeholder.
September 5, 2008 at 10:51 am - Permalink
My bad. I thought the layout would recognize that the graph was renamed unless the layout was freeze-dried as a recreation macro but I was wrong about that.
I've made a note in our wish list.
September 5, 2008 at 04:51 pm - Permalink
This is now available in the latest pre-beta of 6.1.
September 6, 2008 at 07:17 am - Permalink
- not sure if thats a wish, if I just didn't find out how to do it, or if it's an OS issue: a function that lets the user select multiple files (with 'shift' and 'ctrl') in a file dialog and returns a list containing the selected filenames for further processing; for now I use 'open/R' and 'S_filenames', which seems a bit overkill and does (naturally) not allow multiple files to be selected at once. I am aware of the 'Multiple file loader front end' posted on this website, but I think it would be nice to use the OS file selection tools
September 10, 2008 at 02:23 pm - Permalink
This is on my to-do list.
September 10, 2008 at 05:50 pm - Permalink