Commands

At the heart of the program are its commands. It cannot be stated often enough: this is command driven software. Any operation that may be performed in the user interface is ultimately just a method for issuing one of the program’s commands, whether that operation is performed on a screen view of the model, from a menu, by mouse click on a toolbar, or any other kind of visually interactive input operation. However, it should also be remembered that the user interface only exposes some of the command set to the windowed program space. A complete knowledge of the software necessarily implies at least passing familiarity with the entirety of the command set.

The Console Pane

The i Console pane, described in the topics that follow, represents the program’s core. This pane provides the output from command (and FISH or Python script) processing at all times. It may be used for command (and FISH or Python script) input as well. In usual practice, users will input to the console for simple operations, “spot check” inquiries of the model, or possibly as a speedier alternative to program menus or toolbars. In a full scale model run the bulk of the project will be written in and processed from input files — data files, FISH or python script files, and other input files. For working with these, see the discussion of The Editor Pane.

Where Is… ?

This section only introduces commands as a topic and describes working with them in general terms within the program, particularly in the Console pane. Full reference information on all common, PFC, and FLAC3D commands, and all information on FISH and Python scripting is presented elsewhere in the document set.

Common

• Common Commands Index for commands common to all Itasca software (c call, c restore, c geometry, c fracture, c model, c program, c table, etc.)
• Common FISH Index for all FISH functions associated with common commands.

PFC

• PFC Commands Index for PFC commands (c ball, c wall, c clump, etc.)
• PFC FISH Index for PFC FISH functions.

FLAC

• FLAC3D Commands Index for FLAC3D commands (c zone, c structure, c extrude block, etc.)
• FLAC3D FISH Index for all FLAC3D FISH functions.

Scripting

• FISH Scripting for the general reference on FISH;
• FISH Functions for an index of all functions built directly into the FISH language (that are not associated with the set found with the common commands (see above)).
• Python Scripting for the general reference on Python in Itasca software.

Note

The console can be thought of as the “oldest” part of the program. In their first versions, Itasca codes featured nothing but a console window. The proof of the fundamentally command-driven nature of the codes is that, even now, with a number of facilities and on-board utilities added to the program for plotting, mesh generation, project management and more, with the Console alone an entire model run can be performed.

• How Commands Work
  • Command Syntax
  • Command Shaping
  • Command Entry in the Console Pane
  • Command and FISH Highlighting in the Program
  • Command and FISH Reference Notation in the Documents
  • Command Tools
  • Commands: Additional Material
• The Console Pane
  • Console Pane Toolbar
  • Control Panel
• Commands, a Rationale
  • Why A Command-Driven Interface?
  • Why FISH?