Introduction

Treeview gives a convenient way to display and explore hierarchical data structures; it provides similar functionality to the HDSTRACE and NDFTRACE tasks but with a graphical interface (though it can be used in text mode if desired). It also knows about many other data structures such as file system directory hierarchies, zip files, FITS files and XML documents.

The program is installed as a Starlink package in the normal way; it requires installation of the JNIAST package (uk.ac.starlink.ast.* classes and associated shared libraries) and of a J2SE Java Runtime Environment (JRE) at version 1.3 or higher in order to run. Installation installs a script in $INSTALL/bin/treeview which is used to run the application.

As long as the installation binary directory is on your path, you can just type

% treeview item [item...]

where each item is the name of a file, directory, or HDS or NDF component. Following a short delay, a window will pop up showing the item or items you named, and you can point and click to see the images and what is inside them. Navigation and usage is pretty intuitive (especially if you have encountered a java JTree widget before, which is the basis of the visual display), and you may well find you can see how it works by playing with it. If you want more details on the workings however, you can read the following sections.