9.2 PLASTIC control

Note: the PLASTIC protocol has been deprecated in favour of SAMP since about 2009, and this functionality, though still present, is of mostly historical interest.

You can view and control operations relating to the PLASTIC hub from the Interop menu in the Control Window. It contains the following options:

Register with PLASTIC

Attempts to locate a running PLASTIC hub and register with it.

Unregister with PLASTIC

If currently registered with a PLASTIC hub, unregisters with it.

Show registered applications

Pops up a small window which displays what applications are currently registered with any PLASTIC hub with which TOPCAT is registered. This will be kept up to date as applications register and unregister.

Start internal PLASTIC hub

Starts a PLASTIC hub as part of the process within which TOPCAT is running. This will only work if a hub is not already running. The hub will terminate when TOPCAT exits.

Start external PLASTIC hub

Starts a PLASTIC hub as a separate process. This will only work if a hub is not already running. The hub will continue running until it is explicitly terminated (e.g. using a kill command). Because this has some system-dependent features, it's not guaranteed to work, especially in non-Unix environments.

Help on interoperability

Opens an appropriate help section in the help browser.

Broadcast Table

Broadcasts the currently selected table to all listening applications using PLASTIC.

Send Table to ...

Sends the currently selected table to a selected listening application using PLASTIC. Select the desired recipient application from the submenu.