This is the readme.txt file for Laser Line (v100a) Updated 2004-08-24 This software is copyright 2004 Brian C. Vanderkolk. All inquiries should be directed to skywise@skywise711.com http://www.skywise711.com --------------------------------------------------------------------------- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! !! WARNING !! !! THIS SOFTWARE IS STILL IN BETA. !! !! ALTHOUGH THERE ARE NO KNOWN BUGS !! !! AT THIS TIME, THE USUAL DISCLAIMERS !! !! APPLY. THAT IS, !! !! !! !! -> USE AT YOUR OWN RISK <- !! !! !! !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Files in this archive: name | size | purpose ------------------+-----------+----------------- LaserLineBeta.exe | 103,424 | main executable xb.dll | 1,559,040 | run time library wavelength.dat | 36,066 | default data file s | 308,278 | image file readme.txt | 15,193 | this help file --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Other files: name | size | purpose ------------------+-----------+----------------- LaserLine.ini | varies | initialization file This file is not included in the archive but will be generated when the program is run. This file just contains some data the software needs to save between each use of the program. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Q: What is Laser Line? A: Laser Line is a program that draws a chart of the electromagnetic spectrum with known laser lines marked. Q: How do I use Laser Line? A: The program opens with a display of the visible EM spectrum and a title logo. The logo disappears automatically once you click a button or slide a scroll bar or any other function. On the top is a dark grey area where information is displayed. BUTTON FUNCTIONS Along the bottom are several buttons: Select By Medium - Pressing this button brings up a window with individual buttons for each of the available laser media. Selecting an item toggles the display of that mediums laser lines on and off. Also available are selections for all or none. Displayed media are listed in the information area. Select by Phase - This brings up a window with a list of the three phases of matter. This allows the user to choose laser media by the phase of their lasing media; solid, liquid, or gas. Examples of each are Nd:YAG, Rhodamine 6G, and Argon Ion. Quit - Exit the program. Max Zoom - Zoom all the way in to maximum. Min Zoom - Zoom all the way to show the available EM band. Zoom All - Reset display to show all lines of selected media. AutoZoom - When on, the display automatically zooms to show all transitions of selected media when a change in selection is made. Visible - Resets display to just the visible spectrum. Available - Resets selections to only media with lines within the displayed range. AutoAvail - When on, display automatically shows only those media that have transitions in the currently displayed range. Lin/Log - Toggles the display between logarithmic and linear modes. ZOOMING You may zoom by single click or drag & click on the spectrum bar as follows: Left click - Left clicking and releasing without moving the mouse will zoom in, centering the display where you clicked. Right click - Right clicking and releasing without moving the mouse will zoom out, centering the display where you clicked. Click & drag - Left clicking, then draging the cursor and then releasing will zoom the display to the selected region. Likewise, right clicking and draging will zoom out. The amount of zoom out is inversely proportional to the area selected. A larger area zooms out a little. A small area zooms out a lot. If you click down and decide to not zoom, simply move the mouse cursor outside of the spectrum bar and release the mouse button. The zoom function will then be canceled. There are also two scroll bars. The horizontal one below the spectrum bar controls what part of the spectrum is displayed. The vertical one on the right controls the zoom level. DISPLAY LIMITS The limits to the displayable range are currently from 100nm to 20µ. The maximum displayable zoom is a 10 nm range. There is a slider bar just below the display to allow quicker scrolling of the display. DATA FILES The default data file (wavelength.dat) you will not be able to edit as it is a binary data file. There used to be a userdata.txt file where the user could input their own laser data. However, the database structure is changing with each version and is becoming more complex. Until the database is stable the user will not be able to add their own data. Q: What are the system requirements to run Laser Line? A: This executable is compiled for Windows based PC's. Development is on a PIII running Win 2K pro SP4. I have run it on a P4 '98 system. Minimum screen size is 1024x768. True color highly recommended. (Does anybody NOT run true color anymore?) Q: How do I install this program? A: The archive contains only a few files. Simply unzip them into the directory of your choice. To run the program, launch the .exe file. You may make a desktop shortcut linking to this .exe file. Q: How do I un-install this program? A: Very easy. Simply delete the files and any desktop shortcuts. There are no registry entries or other 'hidden' settings that need to be removed. The program is _completely_ self contained. It is my opinion that all software should be written as such. Keep it neat, clean, simple, user & system friendly. Q: How many laser lines and lasing mediums are in the data file? A: To see what is currently availabe, press the 'About' button. Q: Why aren't there more transitions in the database? A: I have several sources for laser transition data and if I were to input it all into the database, the program would have thousands of transitions. However, since this program is still being developed I am spending my time getting the user interface together. Once I have all the features I want implemented and can stop calling this a beta program, then I'll start adding more information to the database. This program started with just those lines that I had already in my personal files. Q: Where are the dye and diode lasers? A: The program is still being developed. Dye lasers are generally tunable and I have not implemented a way to display tuning ranges yet. Diode lasers can be tailor made to any specific frequency within that diodes abilities, hence the same problem as tunable dye lasers. This will eventually change. Q: What language was Laser Line written in? A: Laser Line was written in XBasic v6.2.3. This is a fully GUI capable language with similarities to BASIC but not truly based on it. The language has been designed so that source code can be compiled to Windows and Linux with NO modification. Compiled code is in machine language and not a tokenized run time executable. Executable code is nearly as fast as C. Please see http://www.xbasic.org/ for more information. Q: Is the source code for Laser Line available? A: Source code is not available at this time. Q: May I share Laser Line with others? A: I do not recommend sharing this software at this time for the simple reason that it is in BETA mode and it will keep changing. If you would like to tell others about this program, please ask them to go to my website to download the latest copy. In the future when the program becomes more sophisticated, stable, and reliable, I may change this distribution policy. Q: Problems? A: If you have constructive critisisms, by all means contact me via email at skywise@skywise711.com If all you want to do is bitch and moan, emailing me will only get you *plonked*. I have mail filters and I'm not afraid to use them. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Credits: Laser line data has been gathered from several sources. In no particular order: Sam's LaserFAQ Various manufacturers sales brochures Jeff Hecht, "The Laser Guidebook" second edition, McGraw-Hill Alan B Peterson, In "New Developments amd Applications in GasLasers" Lee R. Carlson chair/editor SPIE Volume 737 Bellingham Wa. proceedings of a 1987 conference on gas lasers. pp 106-11 Marvin J. Weber, "Handbook of Lasers", CRC Press --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Version History: BETA 027a - 2004-07-20 This is the first released version of the program. It is very simple and does not yet have a sophisticated user interface. It's purpose is mainly to announce the existence of the software and to get feedback from users. BETA 036a - 2004-07-23 Reversed the direction of the spectrum from red on the left to violet on the left. Seems this is the 'norm'. Spectrum can now be displayed logarithmically. There is now a toggle button to switch between the two modes. Startup is log. BETA 038a - 2004-07-25 (Not Released) Fixed the display of wavelength labels for both log and linear displays. At certain zoom levels they would overlap or be too close. Wavelength labels >= 1 micron now displayed in microns. BETA 044a - 2004-07-26 Fixed zoom in log display mode. It now centers on the displayed center wavelength. Before it would zoom to the equivilant linear center instead of the log center. This would caus ethe display to shift when zooming. Added "Show Vis" button. Pressing this will scale the display to show all lines of the already selected mediums. Fixed other minor bugs. BETA 066a - 2004-08-01 Added horizontal scroll bar to make scanning the spectrum easier. Cleaned up some of the calculations for the logarithmic display mode. My original 'trial-and-error' formulas were way to complex, using a lot of LOG and EXP functions, so I simplified them algebraically. Selection of laser media is now through a pull down menu instead of dozens of buttons. This also allows the addition of more laser types simply by adding them to the wavelengths file. Also, the extension of the wavlength file has been changed form .list to .txt to make it easier to double-click open the file in explorer. Changed name of 'Show Vis' button to 'Show All'. BETA 073a - 2004-08-05 Added zoom scroll bar. It's working OK but sensitivity is only linear at the moment. Added 'AutoZoom' button. With this selected, the display will automatically zoom to show all lines of selected laser media when a media selection is made. Added 'Available' button. This button will reset the selections to only those media that have lines within the currently displayed range. Colorized laser wavelength labels and laser media list to aid correlation of laser media and their wavelengths. Restructured the way the media are listed. They new have their own area on the top of the window. This area will be used to display other information as well in future version. Added 'AutoAvail' button. With this selected the display automatically shows only those media that have laser transitions within the current display range. Added 'Clear' button to clear the display of all selected media. Changed name of 'Show All' to 'Zoom All'. (sorry, can't make up my mind.) Cleaned up some code and other minor fixes. BETA 090a - 2004-08-16 Added splash screen. Hope you like it! Added single click and click and drag zoom. Just click and drag any where in the spectrum bar and the display will zoom accordingly. Has zoom in and zoom out ability in both single click and drag & click modes. Added 'About' button. Added a few wavelengths. Most notably I have added some far-IR molecular lasers, some going out to the sub-millimeter range. Note that there are several transitions in the database that are currently beyond the set limits of what the program can display. I plan to change this in the future after working out some other details. BETA 100a - 2004-08-24 The data in the wavlength.txt file has been verified through various sources. The data file contains the references to those sources. As explained in the Q&A above, it is still possible to edit the data file using a simple text editor. However, since I have verified the existing database I see no need to change anything that is already there. However, editing is still possible so the user can add their own data as necessary. The wavelength data file has gone through a major change. There are now two files, wavelength.dat and userdata.txt. The .dat file is not editable by the user and contains the default database that comes with the program. The .txt file is a user editable version that allows the end user to add their own data. Instructions for adding to the userdata.txt file are contained in that file itself, along with an example. This change was necessary to take make adding new features easier for me, the programmer. Also, since the default data is 'verified' I wanted to eliminate the possibility of the end user accidentally damaging the data when they tried to add their own data to the file. BETA 132a - 2004-09-06 Have restructured the data files again. The userdata.txt file that was in the previous version is no more. This is in part due to the growing complexity of the database. It may return in a future version. The media selection menu is now in it's own pop-up window. Selecting a medium automatically updates the display. Also, if using the auto-avail mode, the selections in the media selection window will update themselves automatically. I've also added another menu, "Select By Phase". This allows the user to select lasers by the phase of the lasing medium, ie solid, liquid or gas. Using this menu will over-ride selections made in other windows. I've also added the ability for the program to remember the window positions at shutdown. I've changed the font used on the buttons to the more common Arial. /EOF-----------------------------------------------------------------------