2.5 Changes to Version 7.0

1.

PaPCo core has been made portable to VMS and Windows 95. This included:

(a)

A total change to lower case filenames only, as this minimizes problems when going to VMS.

(b)

All routines that deal with file I/O, filenames, environmental variables and such like have been replaced by ``papco_'' routines, making the operating system dependence transparent to the user. All these routines are collected in a new file papco_opsys.pro under papco_XX\papco. These routines are documented there and the user should make use of them in making his/her own module portable.

2.

A new papco slice function has been added: Hair cursor. This plots a large haircursor in the draw window and outputs x, y and z coordinate values in the draw window.

3.

A new routine has been added to papco.color.pro in PAPCO core under papco_XX\papco. This routine allows access to the color table index used to represent a data value in a given PAPCO color subtable:

function PAPCO_Get_subtable_index

This is used by the new Hair cursor slice function.

4.

The whole slice functionality has been overhauled to follow the PaPCo modular philosophy. There are now five PaPCo slices plus the easy facility for the user to add his/her own slice type. See Section 6.5 for more details.

5.

A template now exists for the ``Choose time by orbit'' feature.

6.

A new routine has been added under papco_XX\papco_lib to deallocate logical units from get_lun which are closed but still allocated.

procedure dealloc_lun

This is needed to deallocate logical units which have been allocated by the restore function, since this is not done by IDL internally.

7.

papco_get_remote_data.pro under under papco_XX\papco has been debugged and streamlined. The standard PaPCo error checking has been added, to conform to other read routines.

8.

The plot_type sample module read function has been rewritten to be conform to the latest PAPCO philosophy and standard. It now used the routines in papco_get_remote_data to obtain the sample data file from anonymous ftp on

hydra.mpae.gwdg.de/pub/friedel/plot_type_data.

The sample data file is no longer part of the distribution.

9.

right_side_label.pro under papco_XX\papco_lib has been rewritten to achieve nicer line breaks in the labels using the "!C" format string. The change is transparent to the user.

10.

A new sub-widget has been added to th PaPCo supplied widgets for Panel Editors: An Auxiliary file group. This is a standard sub-widget now used widely in PaPCo.