xdatplot -- An X11 electrophysiology data viewer
************************************************

           

Copyright (c) 1993 Leon Avery
=============================

xdatplot allows viewing of large sequential sampled datasets, such as
are generated by electrophysiological recording. The data can be
filtered, printed on Postscript printers, or saved as MIF files that
can be imported into FrameMaker. Some simple analysis ( peak
detection, mainly) is built in. There is complete documentation:
hypertext files that can be viewed with NCSA Mosaic. Here's how to get
it.

The most recent version is xdatplot-0.2. This is a beta release for
SunOS4.1.3 sun4. If you build on any other platform, you'd better
consider it an alpha release, or pre-alpha (i.e., completely
untested.)

Send questions or comments on xdatplot to: 

        Leon Avery
        Department of Biochemistry
        University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
        5323 Harry Hines Blvd
        Dallas, TX  75235-9038

        leon@eatworms.swmed.edu


Really. Seriously. I want feedback, positive or negative. 
Leon Avery (leon@eatworms.swmed.edu)


xdatplot installation
*********************

How to install xdatplot
=======================

 o On SunOS4.1.3, sun4 
 o Building from source 
 o Additonal things you might want to install 

On SunOS4.1.3, sun4
===================

 1. Get the files xdatplot.gz, asc2bin.gz, and print_big.gz by
    anonymous FTP to eatworms.swmed.edu from the
    Software/SunOS4.1.3_binaries directory.

 2. Execute the command

	gunzip xdatplot.gz asc2bin.gz print_big.gz

    to uncompress the programs. (Note: gunzip is the GNU uncompression
    program.  If you don't have gunzip, pick up the binary when you
    pick up xdatplot.  You can get source code for gzip and gunzip
    from GNU.)

 3. Execute the command

	install xdatplot asc2bin print_big /usr/local/bin

    to mark the programs executable and place them in your bin
    directory. (You can substitute in place of /usr/local/bin any
    directory in your $PATH. If you don't have root permission, you
    can place these programs wherever you keep your own programs.)

Building from source
====================

If your platform is not SunOS4.1.3 sun4, you need to build xdatplot
from source. If you successfully build xdatplot on some other platform
and are willing to contribute the resulting binaries, please contact
me so I can put them on this server. I would also like to hear if
anyone successfully runs xdatplot on Solaris 2.x in Binary
Compatibility mode.

You must have the motif libraries and include files to build
xdatplot. There is currently no option to build it with any free
widget set. This may change in the future.  Then again, it may not.

 1. Get the file xdatplot-0.2.tar.gz by anonymous FTP to
    eatworms.swmed.edu from the Software directory.

 2. Execute the command

	gunzip -c xdatplot-0.2.tar.gz | tar xvf -

    to uncompress the programs. (Note: gunzip is the GNU uncompression
    program.  You can get source code for gzip and gunzip from GNU.)

 3. Execute the following commands: 

       cd xdatplot-0.2
       ./configure
       xmkmf -a
       make
       make install install.ad

That should do it. A few notes: 

 1. Only the last step (make install install.ad) needs to be executed
    as root. If you don't have root permission, just copy xdatplot,
    asc2bin, and print_big to some convenient directory in your $PATH.

 2. By default, xdatplot is built with CDEBUGFLAGS=-g; i.e., it is
    built for debugging, not for performance. To change this, use make
    CDEBUGFLAGS=-O2 instead of make.

 3. It is not absolutely necessary to install the application defaults
    (make install.ad). xdatplot has fallback resources, and will work
    properly without.  But you need it if you're going to set system
    defaults, such as helpURL.  Speaking of which...

 4. The help tree is in the directory xdatplot-0.2/help. If you wish
    to install local help (and there's every reason to do it), point
    the XDatplot*helpURL resource at
    "file://localhost/path/xdatplot-0.2/help/index.html".

Additional things you might want to install
===========================================

The new xdatplot help system is absolutely and utterly dependent on
NCSA mosaic. If you don't have NCSA mosaic (how are you reading this
document?), get it from ftp.ncsa.uiuc.edu. xdatplot expects to find
mosaic under the name "mosaic" in the current $PATH. This can be
changed with the helpViewer resource.

By default (or default default), xdatplot fetches help from Texas over
the Internet.  The reason is to make installation easy for people who
don't want a lot of trouble and never use help anyway. However, this
makes it slow, especially if you're a long looong way from Texas. And
of course, if you don't have an Internet connection, it won't work at
all. So if you think you're going to be using xdatplot for any length
of time, you should probably fetch the help tree and install it
locally. Set the Load to Local Disk option in mosaic, save this file
as xdatplot_help.tar.gz, say "gunzip -c xdatplot_help.tar.gz | tar xvf
-", which will create a directory called help, then point the
XDatplot*helpURL resource at "file://localhost/path
/xdatplot-0.2/help/index.html".

There are a few sample data files in Software/Data you can use to find
out if xdatplot is more or less working.

xdatplot will work without a system application defaults file. But if
you're a system manager type and want to set defaults for all your
users, you need to get the app-default file Software/XDatplot.ad.gz
and edit it. Yes it's huge and horrible, but don't worry about
it. Most of the stuff you're interested in changing is near the
top. The one thing you must not do is create a tiny little XDatplot
file in the system app-defaults directory specifying only the 2
resources you want to change. This will cause xdatplot not to use its
fallback resources, and it will break badly.

Leon Avery (leon@eatworms.swmed.edu)
