User Interface Options in IDL

If you create an application that requires user interaction, you will need to supply a user interface. IDL gives you several options for supplying an interface. In order of increasing complexity, you can use any of the following:

Non-graphical Interface — You can use the IDL command line as a non-graphical user interface to request simple textual user input, display Direct graphics visualizations, or display data in the IDL Console view. See Non-Graphical User Interfaces for more information.

Existing iTool Interface — You can use an existing iTool to provide quick data display and manipulation capabilities for image, plot, surface, volume and map data. See Existing iTool Interfaces for more information.

Graphical Interface — You can use IDL widgets to build a complete graphical interface of your own design. Creating a user interface from scratch (as opposed to using the iTools framework) gives you complete control over the appearance and functionality of the interface, but you must code all underlying functionality. You can also create a hybrid widget-iTool application, but this requires additional programming expertise. See Graphical Interfaces with IDL Widgets for more information.

Custom iTool — You can create a custom iTool interface that allows you to expand on the capabilities of the standard iTool design and configure the appearance of your iTool. This option requires the most programming expertise. It is likely that one of the other options will meet the needs of the majority of applications, but this level of customization is available for those who require it. See Custom iTool Interfaces for more information.