Show synop

Purpose

show_synop is a SolarSoftware IDL widget that incorporates searching the Virtual Solar Observatory (VSO), pre-processing, and displaying capabilities into one graphical user interface (GUI). Also see RHESSI Nugget N° 131 Cloudy SolarSoftware.

Requirements

• Up-to-date SSW gen tree, installation and download instructions
• If using remote pre-processing capabilities
  • IDL 6.4 or later
  • Sun Java 1.5

Description

; Routine syntax
[p]show_synop[/p], plotman=plotman

The plotman keyword is optional.

Keyword	Description	Example
plotman	This keyword allows sharing or reusing plotman (e.g. between an active plotman window and show_synop)	p=[f]plotman[/f](/nopanel) & [p]show_synop[/p], plotman=p

show_synop main widget

1. Done closes show_synop, GOES Workbench opens a separate widget that allows for GOES data visualization, and Configure shows the show_synop configuration options (see #show_synop configuration widget).
2. Start Time, End Time, and remote sites-> are used for the time and instrument based search that is started by clicking on the Search button. The drop-down list at remote sites -> shows all currently supported instruments. A click on the button # Sub-intervals: 0 opens an GOES light-curve based search.
3. The box showing *** Press "Search" to list filenames *** lists the search results. The list shows file name, observation time, wavelength, and file size. The sorting can be changed to Filename, Decreasing Date, and Increasing Date.
4. View Header allows you to view the FITS header of a selected file. The Display button will pre-process the selected data file locally (if the instrument software is installed) or remotely using the PrepServer; show_synop will automatically assign the pre-processed data file a name (prepped_ + original file name). Pre-processed data is then displayed it with PLOTMAN. To remove a data file from the local hard disk click on Delete.
5. This text box indicates the current working directory. Change allows browsing to another folder on the local hard disk.
6. This is a list of all files in the selected working directory (see bullet N° 5).

show_synop configuration widget

1. This allows saving the current search settings. The next time show_synop is started a search is automatically executed with those saved settings.
2. Saying Yes will cause show_synop to keep search results in a cache. show_synop will returned the cached search results rather than sending a request to the VSO. Use Clear current cache if you want to receive updated search results.
3. Say No to prevent accidental overwriting of data.
4. By default level-0 data is downloaded and only pre-processed on demand. Saying Yes will cause show_synop to send a request for remote pre-processing to the PrepServer before downloading data. Using this option may save time and bandwidth.
5. By default the PrepServer remote pre-processing service is automatically called if a data file has not been pre-processed and the instrument software is not present on the local computer. Saying No will cause show_synop to display the unprocessed data file rather than sending it to the PrepServer.
6. Saying No will cause show_synop to display data in a standard IDL plot window.
7. [Experimental] Some instrument pre-processing calls can be configured in a separate widget before a "prep" request is sent to the PrepServer.

Troubleshooting

Resetting show_synop

• show_synop creates a personal settings file preserving your show_synop settings. This file is called .show_synop_config and is located in %tmp% (Windows) or $HOME (Mac/Linux/Unix). To reset show_synop, close the show_synop widget and then delete the settings file.
• show_synop can be configured to keep search results in a cache (see #show_synop configuration widget). Clearing this cache will casue show_synop to refresh search results. Use this if search results do not seem accurate.