The easiest way to start IDL is by launching the IDL Workbench, which is an Eclipse-based graphical user interface.
You can also run IDL in command-line mode, which uses a text-only interface and sends output to your terminal screen or shell window. See Command-line Options for IDL Startup for details.
To launch IDL:
Operating System
|
Executable |
Workbench |
Command Line |
Windows
|
64-bit |
Start > IDL x.x
|
Start > IDL x.x IDL Command Line
|
|
32-bit |
|
A shortcut to start IDL Command Line (32-bit) is located in C:\Program Files\Harris\IDLxx, where xx is the software version.
|
Mac
|
64-bit |
Double-click on the idl icon in your IDL installation folder
or
Enter idlde at the X11 Terminal window shell prompt
|
Click on the idl icon in your IDL installation folder
or
Enter idl at the X11 Terminal window shell prompt
|
Linux
|
64-bit |
Enter idlde at the shell prompt
|
Enter idl at the shell prompt
|
|
|
To launch IDL from the shell prompt, you must first explicitly open a terminal window and set up each IDL user's environment.
|
Quitting IDL
To quit IDL from the command line, type EXIT.