Isotope Explorer user's manual

Isotope Explorer user's manual

The chart interface and script language

The chart interface serves a dual purpose:

It is an alternate user interface for selecting nuclides, bands, etc.
It is a general tool for generating nuclear charts

Together with the script language described below it is a very powerful tool for displaying systematic trends of nuclear properties, for producing custom-made nuclear charts and for selecting data to be displayed by the program.

A part of the chart may look like this:

The chart is color-coded according to the isotope abundance. The small window, the navigation window, is used for moving about in the chart. This is achieved in two ways:

Click and drag the small rectangle to the required position
Click anywhere on the small chart, and the selected point will become the center of the display

If the view is expanded, the selected data are displayed in the nuclide box:

One data item (in this case the abundance) is chosen for the color coding, and the other data items selected are displayed in the nuclide boxes together with the nuclide identification.

In addition to displaying ENSDF or chart data, Isotope Explorer can retrieve nuclear properties from the ENSDF database with the script language. These properties can then be displayed as color coding of a nuclear chart. Functions defined in the script language allow calculations to be performed with the data retrieved.

Nuclear chart data can also be stored as separate files - see the document about available chart files and the section about data files below.

At present, many options are controlled by data files, and these files have to be edited in order to change options. As the program evolves, more and more of these options will be controlled by menus, tool bar s and panels from within the Isotope Explorer.

The menu bar

The following menu items are available in chart mode:

File
Get Reference: Decode NSR Keynumber, search for NSR Authors
Select Nucleus: Get nuclide data
New chart: Create a new chart window
Open chart: Open an existing chart file
Open local file...: Open a local data file
Save as...: Save chart as a new .chr file
Close: Close the active window
Print: Print current view
Printer setup: Change printer or properties of current printer
.....: Open recently used files
Exit: Exit Isotope Explorer

Chart
Set scale: Set size of nuclide box in nuclear chart
Zoom in: Increase size of nuclide box in nuclear chart
Zoom out: Decrease size of nuclide box in nuclear chart
Display decay chain: Toggle. When this mode is on, the decay chain of a selected nuclide is displayed
Design chart: Not yet implemented
Select color scheme: Brings up a menu to determine the color scheme (lower, upper limit; Whether or not both limit are entered; linear or logarithmic)
Hide data in nuclide box: Toggle. Selected data are not shown in nuclide boxes
Color according to: Brings up a menu for selecting which of the loaded data should determine the color scheme
Select field: Brings up a menu for selecting which data should be loaded into the chart. When selection panel is closed with OK, the chart is rebuilt
Build chart: Rebuilds chart (used when a new chart has been opened)
Cancel building chart: Stop the chart building process
Set nuclide ID font size: Set font size of nuclide identification label
Set title font size: Set font size of chart title
Set data font size: Set font size of data in nuclide boxes
Set legend title font size: Set font size of legend title
Set legend font size: Set font size of data in legend
Display navigation window: Toggle. Display navigation window
Open editor: Open editor with current chart
Add view: Reads the current chart file to a new window

Configuration
Save the size of the current view: Save font sizes, width etc. to the ISOEXPL.INI file *** This should be disabled - saved in chart file! ***
Nuclear data source >: Select: Internet database/local database. On selecting local database the user has to locate it on the disk
Reference data source >: Select: Internet database/local database. On selecting local database the user has to locate it on the disk
Debug mode: Debug mode on/off (in debug mode all operations performed are logged in the file LOG)

Window
Cascade: Make windows overlapping
Tile: Tile all windows side by side
Arrange Icons: Arrange icons of iconized windows at the bottom of the main window
Close All: Close all open windows
.....: List of currently opened windows

Help
About: Isotope Explorer version information, authors etc.
Report problem: Requires network connection. Allows the user to report problems with Isotope Explorer or the databases directly to the Berkeley server
Isotope Explorer news: Requires network connection. Latest news about the program and databases
Help: Isotope Explorer Help function

The tool bar

The following items, from left to right, are active:

Open an existing chart file

Get nuclide data

Get reference *** Add this! ***

Rebuilds chart (used when a new chart has been opened)

Set size of nuclide box in nuclear chart

Increase size of nuclide box in nuclear chart

Decrease size of nuclide box in nuclear chart

Brings up a menu for selecting which data should be loaded into the chart. When selection panel is closed with OK, the chart is rebuilt

Brings up a menu to determine the color scheme (lower, upper limit; Whether or not both limit are entered; linear or logarithmic)

Toggle. When this mode is on, the decay chain of a selected nuclide is displayed

Toggle. Display navigation window

About Isotope Explorer (version information)

Isotope Explorer help

The chart files

Chart files have the extension .CHR, and contain the following (optional) four sections:

TITLE: Ground state properties
Contains only one line with the title of the chart. If present, it must be the first line. Default: Untitled
INIT:
....
END INIT
Contains information for scaling, layout and coloring of the chart
BUILD:
DataBase(Ensdf)
Nucleus(a=80-200)
....
END BUILD
Contains the information how to build the chart. See the section about the script language
CHART:
....
133La (Z=57):
133Ce (Z=58):3

SD-1 band (95HABB)
SD-2 band (95HAAA)
SD-3 band (95HAAA)

133Pr (Z=59):4

SD-1 band (95WIAA)
SD-2 band (95WIAA)
SD-3 band (95WIAA)
SD-4 band (95WIAA)

....
END CHART
Contains the body of the chart: nuclear identification followed by data. The first line of data follows immediately after nuclear id, and each subsequent line of data is preceded by a tab character.

The user can start from a blank chart and use the menu to custom build his own chart. Once the chart is finished, it can be saved for later use with File, Save as... However, the design of the menu is at the moment incomplete, and some of the commands have to be edited by hand into the Build section. The following section gives a summary of the available commands.

Comments to: F Chu (program), P Ekström (manual)