PHOENICS VR is launched by the satellite program, satexe.exe. It has a number of optional arguments to enable certain actions to be made on start up. These were introduced to ease the demonstration of the capabilities of the interface. They may also prove useful in launching VR from the PHOENICS Commander.
To launch the VR-Editor the options are:
satexe vre [/lib=libname] [/case=casename] [/find=true|false] [/new] [/silent] [/dir=directoryname]
To launch VR-Viewer the options are:
satexe vrv [/case=casename] [/macro=macroname] [/find=true|false] [/new] [/silent] [/dir=directoryname] [/quit] [/noquit]
/lib=libname: VR editor only. Load specified libcase from the PHOENICS library on start-up. User is prompted on whether to overwrite the current case unless /silent argument is also used.
/case=casename: VR editor and Viewer. Load specified user case into VR on start-up. User is prompted on whether to overwrite the current case unless /silent argument is also used.
/dir=directoryname: VR editor and viewer. Start VR in specified directory
/find=true|false: If set true (default), VR will open in an existing VR window if available.
/last: Start in same folder as on last exit.
/new: Always try to open a new VR window. [An alternative to /find=true.]
/silent: Optional argument when opening specified user or library case. Indicates not to prompt user before overwriting any existing files
/macro=macroname: VR Viewer only. Load specified viewer macro on program start-up.
Additional flags, only used if macro supplied,
/quit: Quit Viewer after macro finishes
/noquit: (default) Do not quit viewer after macro.
As an example of how the use of these arguments may be used in PC, consider the library search facility. The user has made his search and is faced with a list of library cases. Currently, when a case is loaded a small Q1 is written and a new instance of the VR Editor is launched. This is all very well if the user chooses to close the existing instance but if they do not, then after the second instance of the VR Editor the program will fail to launch without any visible error message. However, if VRE is launched with the command
satexe vre /find /silent /lib=i104
Then it will find any existing instance of the VR environment and proceed to load library case i104. The silent tag indicates that the user is not prompted before the exisiting case in the editor is overwritten. When trying a succession of library cases it is probably not necessary to confirm overwrite at each instance.
The /case argument performs a similar role for prepared user cases. It may also be used to load a case directly into the viewer.
The /directory argument enables the program to be launched from one location and then run in another. Please note that the program will change the working directory before attempting to load a case or run a macro.
During a VR Viewer session, prepared views may be saved to a macro file to playback at a later date. The /macro argument allows such a macro to be run at start-up. This is not actually a new feature, there is currently an equivalent to the /macro argument:
satexe vrv auto filename
But this requires that the arguments be in the set order. With the additional options present, it could easily lead to confusion. So, while we retain the above for backward compatibility the preferred method would be:
satexe vrv /macro=filename
One could add the /quit argument to this if the user wishes to quit the viewer after the macro has completed.