UNIX/IRAF Site Manager's Guide

4.2. Vector graphics capabilities

The standard graphics terminal emulator for IRAF under X11 is xgterm, which emulates a conventional dual plane text/graphics terminal. On systems to which xgterm has yet to be ported, such as VMS, xterm is typically used, this is an equivalent terminal emulator but the graphics support isn't quite as nice. This software terminal is driven via an ASCII datastream like a conventional hard terminal (except that the effective baud rate is much higher). The text window behaves like the system console and the graphics window behaves like a Tektronix 4012, plus some IRAF oriented extensions. Since xgterm emulates standard text and graphics devices non-IRAF programs can easily be run as well as IRAF programs.

Configuring IRAF to use xgterm is very simple. The following command does the job. This is normally executed by the login.cl or loginuser.cl file at login time.

cl> stty xgterm

Further information on xgterm may be found in the xgterm.info file in the IRAF network archive with the xgterm binaries or by contacting site support. Xterm users can define the window type similarly, i.e.

cl> stty xterm            # or
cl> stty xtermjh

Since xterm lacks a true status line users may prefer the second example which puts status output on the text window instead of overwriting the graphics window.