ILWIS External Commands

By: Bas Retsios

Date: 18 June 2004

ILWIS 3.21 comes with several improvements regarding external commands
1
and extensions to the
menu and operation tree/list to make it more convenient for users to open external documents (.doc, .txt
etc.) or call external executable files (.exe, .com or .bat files) and include the commands for doing so in
the ILWIS menu and operation tree/list.

New in ILWIS 3.21
1. Improved command syntax for external commands
- External commands can have Long File Names. This is supported for all the options to
call external commands:
o The ILWIS command-line
o A script
o The action.def file (menu, operation tree/list)
o The Tools subdirectory (see last paragraph: Already existing functionality )
- External commands for calling an executable file can have parameters. This works for all
the options to call external commands with parameters:
o The ILWIS command-line
o A script
o The action.def file (menu, operation tree/list)

2. Improved behavior when executing external commands
- For external executable files, ILWIS will wait for them to finish execution before a new
command is processed. This option can be disabled if needed (see later in this document).
- For MS-DOS executable files, ILWIS will show the MS-DOS window while it is
executing. If an error occurs in the MS-DOS program, ILWIS will show the error in a
pop-up message.

3. User-made action.def files
- ILWIS searches for user-made action.def files in the subfolders of ILWIS. The
operations found there are merged to the operations found in the main action.def
file.

Improved command syntax for external commands

Supported syntax New in 3.21 Notes
!file No It is assumed that file is an
executable file with extension
.exe
!file.ext No Executable files (e.g. .exe) are
executed; document files (e.g.
.txt) are opened in the
appropriate program.
!full_path\file.ext No A full path can be included
!path_relative_to_ilwis\file.ext Yes For executable files, a path
relative to the folder where
ILWIS resides can be included.
This does not work for
document files.
!LFN_path_or_file.ext Yes When the path and/or the file
consist of a Long File Name,
the entire path, file and
extension must be quoted by

1
The commands that start with ! and can be document files or executable files, with or without
parameters.
single quotes.
!executable_file.ext parameter1
parameter2
Yes The two parameters are passed
to the executable file.
!executable_file.ext long parameter Yes The parameter in single quotes
is passed as one parameter to
the executable. This can e.g. be
used for passing LFNs as a
parameter.

Examples:
Call notepad:
!notepad
Call notepad and let it open d:\try.txt:
!notepad d:\try.txt
Call C:\Program Files\gdal\gdal_translate.exe to convert d:\aaa.gif to d:\my files\bbb.tif:
!C:\Program Files\gdal\gdal_translate.exe d:\aaa.gif d:\my files\bbb.tif

Notes:
- Long File Names, whether as an executable file, a document file, or a parameter, must be
quoted by single quotes. Unlike elsewhere in ILWIS, the quote must include the
extension.
- If no path is given to an external executable file, ILWIS will search for it at several
places. Among others, the ILWIS directory, the current directory, the Windows and
Windows\System directories and the directories in the PATH environment variable are
searched. If the file is not located there, an absolute or relative path must be included.
- If no path is given to an external document file, ILWIS will search for it in the current
directory (ILWIS catalog). If the file is not located there, an absolute path or a path
relative to the current directory must be included.
- When files are passed as parameters to an external executable, it is up to the external
executable to locate them.
- If no extension is given to an external file, ILWIS will append .exe.

Improved behavior when executing external commands

Above commands will force ILWIS to wait for completion, e.g. ILWIS will wait for the user to close
notepad, or wait for the conversion of gdal_translate.
If this is unwanted, use !!, e.g. !!notepad to execute the external command in non-waiting mode
(like in ILWIS versions prior to 3.21).

User-made action.def files

ILWIS will search for more files named action.def in subfolders of the ILWIS folder. With those,
the user can add new commands to the ILWIS menu. The syntax is exactly the same as the main
action.def file that resides in the ILWIS folder.

action.def files can refer to external commands (starting with !). Note that most likely in an
action.def file the doubled !! is more appropriate, as ILWIS should not wait for completion of
commands started from the menu or the operation tree/list.

For external commands in the user-made action.def files, one exception is made to the
requirement that an absolute or relative path should be included: files in the same folder as the user-
made action.def file can be referred to by preceding the file name by the characters .\ (dot-backslash).

Using abovementioned short path notation, here is one way of filling the Command column in a user-
made action.def file that resides in the same folder as my editor.exe:
!!.\my editor.exe

For user-made action.def files that include .\ before the filename, note the following: it is
recommended to always surround the filename and the .\ with single quotes. Strictly speaking, this is
only needed when the filename is a Long File Name or when ILWIS is installed in a path using Long
File Names (such as Program Files), but quoting will make sure the user-made action.def files will
work for other users as well.

Already existing functionality before ILWIS 3.21

The following functionality regarding extension of the menu with user-defined functions already
existed in ILWIS versions prior to 3.21, but many users are not aware of it, and therefore the
information is repeated here:
- At start-up, ILWIS searches for a subfolder named Tools, and includes all files found
there in the menu and the operation tree/list, under an entry named Tools.
- At start-up, ILWIS searches for a subfolder named Scripts and includes all script
(*.isl) files found there in the menu and the operation tree/list, under an entry named
Scripts.
- The user can add more folders to search for tools and scripts in the
FilePreferencesDirectories of ILWIS. When adding multiple folders, they must be
separated from each other by ; (semicolons).
- The user can bypass the action.def file that resides in the same folder as
ilwis30.exe, and have ILWIS use a custom action.def file instead. ILWIS will
first look for an action.def file in the Default Startup dir set in the
FilePreferencesDirectories. If it is not found there, ILWIS will try to find it in the
folder mentioned in the Start in property of the Shortcut to ilwis30.exe. If it is also
not found there, the action.def file is taken from the same folder as
ilwis30.exe.