Analytic solutions Graphics Important modifications Installation and running MMP solver New features PFD solver System requirements
OpenMaXwell is a typical Windows application. Its frame consists of 1) the title bar, located on the top, 2) the menu bar, located below the title bar, 3) the status bar, located on the bottom, 4) three permanent, modeless dialogs that can be positioned anywhere on the screen, 5) the window contents area, containing a text window and one or several graphics windows.
The title bar of OpenMaXwell contains the system menu icon, the program name, two buttons for minimizing and maximizing OpenMaXwell, and the x button for closing OpenMaXwell.
On the menu bar, OpenMaXwell offers the menus File, Draw, Modify, Tools, Window, and Help. Each of these menus has several items that become visible when you select the corresponding menu. For more information see Menus.
The status bar is not used in the current version of OpenMaXwell.
OpenMaXwell uses three modeless dialogs that are permanently on the screen as long as OpenMaXwell is running. For more information, see Dialogs.
The Info window of OpenMaXwell is permanently displayed. You may minimize it , but you cannot delete it. OpenMaXwell uses this window for three tasks. 1) To output some information on the code. 2) To output rare error messages when errors are detected by routines that have no access to dialog boxes. 3) To output large amounts of data, for example, MMP error statistics, that cannot be displayed in the Info dialog.
OpenMaXwell uses at least one graphic window. The graphic windows consists of borders, labels, texts, and a rectangular area to display graphic data. Graphic data includes 1) Representations of the derived field. 2) Representations of boundaries of 2D domains for field computations. 3) Representations of the location and orientation of 2D MMP expansions for field computations. 4) Representations of functions. 5) A representation of the color palette.
In addition to the standard graphics window, you may also open an OpenGL window for 3D representations. Note that this window and the standard graphic windows behave differently and are handled differently. You may only decide at the beginning of your OpenMaXwell session whether you want to us the OpenGL window. When you close the OpenGL window OpenMaXwell exits.
You can use your mouse not only for selecting menus, pressing buttons, etc., but also for graphical modifications to objects such as boundaries of domains, the locations of expansions, etc. These mouse actions are performed when the cursor is within a standard graphic window.
The effect of a mouse action (while the cursor is within a standard graphic window) depends on which of the items of the Modify menu is turned on.
When the cursor is within the OpenGL window, the mouse action depends on the settings in the OpenGL window dialog. When you press the second mouse button while the cursor is within the OpenGL window, the OpenGL window dialog will pop up.
Each standard graphic window has a grid, by default these grid lines are turned off, i.e., not visible. Nonetheless, for manipulating boundaries, expansions, and fields, the location of the nearest grid point is used rather than the location of the cursor. When the grid is appropriately set, this is helpful for graphic manipulations.
Responsible for this web page: Ch. Hafner, Computational Optics Group, IEF, ETH, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland
Last update 17.02.2014