IDL Perspectives Overview
A perspective is a collection of workbench views that combine to make it easy to accomplish the work you want to perform. For example, if you want to quickly visualize data, use the Visualize perspective. When you are programming, you may want to use the IDL perspective. To troubleshoot your code, use the Debug perspective.
All the perspectives show the command line, the console, and the editor, which are important no matter what you are doing in IDL.
The differences between the perspectives are:
- Visualize Perspective—contains the Visualization Palette and makes the Variables view more prominent. The main workflow in this perspective is to drag and drop variables onto the tools in the Visualization Palette.
- IDL Perspective—shows a larger Editor view and Project Explorer. The main workflows for this perspective are creating and running IDL programs.
- Debug Perspective—contains the Debug and Program Outline views, and makes the Variables and Breakpoints views more prominent. The main workflows for this perspective are creating and troubleshooting IDL programs.
Switching Between Perspectives
To switch perspectives, simply click on the perspective's name in the Perspectives tab at the top right of the IDL Workbench:
Customizing IDL Perspectives
You can customize any of the perspectives to reflect your own workflows and preferences. Views can be rearranged within the perspective, added to the perspective, or removed from the perspective as you choose. For instructions on how to move views, see Views.
You can always restore IDL's default configuration for a perspective by selecting Window → Reset Perspective ...
More on Working With Perspectives
Perspectives are a core feature of the Eclipse Workbench environment on which the IDL Workbench is based. To read more on workbench perspectives, see Perspectives in the Eclipse documentation.
