Intro to EXPGUI

What is EXPGUI?
EXPGUI is a graphical user interface (GUI) editor for GSAS experiment (.EXP) files and shell which allows all the other GSAS programs to be executed with a GUI, similar to the tkGSAS shell. EXPGUI is not a replacement for the GSAS program EXPEDT, as there are many things that EXPGUI cannot do. I have tried to put most of the actions that I use most frequently and that could be easily accommodated into EXPGUI.


Is there documentation?

Some. There is:

So what can EXPGUI do?

Phase parameters: EXPGUI can edit the cell and atomic parameters as well as the cell and atomic damping and refinement flags.
Histogram parameters: Scale factor, background, diffractometer constants, phase fractions, profile terms can all be changed.
Least-Squares options: control the number of cycles, the print options and Fobs extraction parameters.
Creating new .EXP files and adding phases, histograms and atoms.


So what can't EXPGUI do?

Much more than it can do. At this time, EXPGUI can't delete atoms or change their type. It cannot create or edit soft constraints or hard constraints. It cannot be used on phases with magnetic scattering or on single-crystal histograms. It can't even change the profile function number. It also can't change the excluded data regions.

I hope to add some of these capabilities in the future, but EXPEDT is a huge program and it is unlikely that anyone will replace it any time soon. I will consider adding more functionality if requested and the job is reasonably tractable.


What type of computers will EXPGUI run on?

EXPGUI requires Tcl/Tk. While that is somewhat restrictive, it still means that EXPGUI will run on many more platforms than GSAS does. Most of the development has been done in LINUX with some testing on SGI and Windows-95 systems. I expect that EXPGUI will run on all platforms where GSAS does (except perhaps VMS).


Who is to blame for EXPGUI?

The initial version of the GUI part of EXPGUI was created by Jonathan Wasserman (thanks Jon!) Brian Toby is irresponsible for the rest.


EXPGUI would be much more of use to me if....

Gee, you want to add some features... Great! You have all the EXPGUI sources and Tcl/Tk is free. Oh, you want me to do it. Well, I might get to it if you ask. I am looking for good ideas on how to design GUI's for different aspects of experiment editing, for example:how to code and edit hard constraints with an attractive, intuitive and compact GUI.


Neither the author nor the U.S. Government makes any warranty, expressed or implied, or assumes any liability or responsibility for the use of this information or the software described here. Brand names cited here are used for identification purposes and do not constitute an endorsement by NIST.

Brian Toby (Brian.Toby@NIST.GOV)
$Revision: 94 $ $Date: 2009-12-04 23:00:18 +0000 (Fri, 04 Dec 2009) $