What's new ?

[Kristian Nielsen]

> Date: Mon, 08 Nov 1999 10:55:14 +0100
> From: Farhi <farhi at ill.fr>

> This all sounds great.
> Please send me your 'clic and run' version of McStas.I'll be glad to =
> test
> it. What interface did you use : Tcl/Tk ? Java ? ...

Ok, I put it on the web server at

    http://neutron.risoe.dk/mcstas/support/farhi/mcstas-1.17A.tar.gz

It installs as usual. After installation, two new front-ends should be
available, "mcgui" and "mcrun". The "mcrun" one is a command-line
interface that automatically recompiles simulations if necessary, ie.

    mcrun in14_6.instr -n 1e5 KI=2.66 WN=0.03 ORDER=1 MHV=3

will run your in14 simulation, automatically running mcstas and the C
compiler when the definition is changed.

The "mcgui" front-end is the point-and-click interface. It allows you to
load an instrument definition and modify it in a simple editor. You then
select "run simulation", and a dialog will pop up allowing you to enter
the values for instrument parameters etc, and then run the
simulation. Optionally, the results will be plottet using mcplot. It is
also possible to read in the "mcstas.sim" file from a previous
simulation ("Read old simulation") to either plot the data or to re-run
the simulation with the same parameters. Please let me know if you have
any problems, I have tried to make it as simple and intuitive to use as
possible.

I used the Perl/Tk library, which is the same graphics library used in
Tcl/Tk, but using Perl instead of Tcl. You can download it from the
download page on the McStas web server, hopefully it will be easier to
install than the PgPerl library.

I also now put your new components on the "unofficial downloads"
page. Once again, many thanks for your work! I hope I got everything
right with file versions and so on. I think your components will be very
useful. Have you considered sending a message to the mailing list
(neutron-mc at risoe.dk) to announce your work and offer it to the other
McStas users?

 - Kristian.