Important Changes for Release 1.7

SAOtng is an evolving (some would say oscillating) system: we try to respond to user needs as quickly as possible. The following changes have been initiated by user feedback:

Personalized configuration

SAOtng command line options can be stored as csh-style environment variables in the ~/.saotng file. These options will always be executed at start-up time. See SAOtng Command Line Options for more information.

New colormap support can stop color flashing

SAOtng now uses the public X colormap to avoid colormap flashing when the mouse is moved from one window to another, even when Netscape and CDE are also running. See SAOtng Colormap Considerations for more information.

Autoconfiguration of frames

We have added the ability for SAOtng to resize image frame #1 each time a new image is loaded (as did SAOimage). Autoconfiguration allows you to maintain the entire image in the frame and pan from one part to another without re-extracting image data from the file. See Autoconfigure of Frame #1 for more information.

Autoflip of images

We have added the ability for SAOtng to orient newly loaded images so that "north is up". If WCS information is present, autoflip will orient a new image so that increasing "cdelt1" is toward the left and increasing "cdelt2" is in the upward direction. See Autoflip of Images for more information.

Print Directive options

When generating a PostScript shot of the SAOtng screen, a number of print options are available, including rotation, labeling, sizing, and conversion to grayscale. See Print Directives for more information.

Region name/color association

Region names (which were restricted to "source" and "background") and associated colors now can be specified by the user. See Region Names and Colors for more information.

Marker analysis

In addition to general analysis routines, SAOtng now supports marker analysis routines that can be associated with specific marker shapes and specific file types. See Marker Analysis in SAOtng for more information.

GUI improvements

We have reworked the SAOtng GUI to use beautiful 3-D buttons, to eliminate ugly scroll bars around the accelerator buttons, to make the dialog boxes, control panel, help windows, etc., consistent and easy to use. We hope you like it!

X Window System Problems

A few problems have arisen with different flavors of X11 on different platforms. Please see X Window System Problems to see how to identify and work around these annoyances.

IRAF-related changes

SAOtng used to set the IRAF input and output fifos to /dev/imt1 by default. This caused more problems than it solved and so we made the default fifo "NONE". Therefore, in order to use tv/display with SAOtng, please use the -fifo switch or the SAOTNG_IFIFO and SAOTNG_OFIFO environment variables. To reproduce the old setup:

  saotng -fifo /dev/imt1
or
  setenv SAOTNG_FIFO /dev/imt1

Last Updated June 14, 1997