## About This Guide

Partial Table-of-Contents

- Who Should Use It
- How To Use It
- Typographic Conventions
- Related Publications and Sources
- IBM Publications
- Non-IBM Publications
- Other sources of information

  This manual is a guide to using IBM Visualization Data Explorer`*` for:

  - manipulating and controlling data visualizations
  - importing various kinds of data for visualization
  - creating and customizing visual programs with the Visual Program Editor
  - using the Data Explorer scripting language to create visual programs.

  ## Who Should Use It

  This Guide is intended for users of different degrees of knowledge and experience with graphical programs:

  Non-programmers | The non-programmer can learn how to use previously created visual programs to examine data sets (e.g., modifying one or more inputs to a visual program and saving and restoring the results).

  Programmers

  The programmer can learn how to use:
  - the visual programming interface to create visual programs and applications.
  - the scripting language to create visualizations.

  This Guide assumes that you have some knowledge of the operating system and the X Window System** being used, as well as of OSF**/Motif**. For more information, see IBM AIXwindows User's Guide or the appropriate window system documentation.

  In this Guide, any reference to the X Window System means any window server that supports the X11 protocol, including Sun's OpenWindows**.
  The Motif window manager, mwm, has been used in many figures and examples in this Guide. Please use the appropriate window manager for your system, such as vuewm (Hewlett-Packard), 4dwm (SGI), or olwm (Sun). Since title bars and window borders are features of a window manager, the appearance of your windows may differ slightly from those in the figures and examples.

  [ OpenDX Home at IBM | OpenDX.org ]