This tutorial will show you how to modify existing visual programs and create new ones. In the process, it will also introduce you to a number of the most commonly used modules. As you become more experienced using Data Explorer, you can explore more of each module’s many options. Tutorial II Visual Programs Visual programs and files required for Tutorial II all reside in the same directory and therefore have the same path name except for file name and extension. Thus where a visual program is referred to only by its file name and extension (i.e., …/filename.ext), the full path name is easily derived if needed: /usr/lpp/dx/samples/tutorial/filename.ext The procedures you will be using most are: 2.4 , ‘Opening and Executing a Visual Program’ selecting tools and placing their icons in the Visual Program Editor canvas (see ‘Selecting tools and placing icons’) opening and modifying a configuration dialog box (see ‘Specifying inputs: configuration dialog boxes’ and also ‘Controlling Inputs: Configuration Dialog Boxes’). When you open the Visual Program Editor (VPE) with the dx -edit command, or by choosing New Visual Program in the Startup window, you will see a large blank area (the ‘canvas’) and two ‘palettes’ to its left (see Figure 4). The palette at top lists ‘categories’ of tools (modules). The palette below it lists the tools in the currently selected (highlighted) category. Each tool icon has one or more tabs on top and bottom. These tabs represent, respectively, input(s) to the tool module and output(s) from it. Each input parameter in the configuration dialog box corresponds to an upper tab on the tool icon. The leftmost tab corresponds to the first parameter, and so on. At the bottom of the dialog box are Expand and Collapse buttons. The first button ‘expands’ the dialog box, displaying additional parameters. The second button ‘collapses’ the dialog box, hiding every parameter whose ‘Hide’ toggle button is activated. (When a tool has no hidden parameters, both buttons are disabled, as indicated by their gray labels.) A visual program is a ‘network’ of interconnected tool modules. In the VPE window, this network is represented as a set of tool icons connected to one another by lines (‘arcs’) representing the data (Figure 4 in Tutorial I shows such a network.) Connecting tool icons with arcs Click on the input tab to which the arc is connected (e.g., the input tab on Sequencer): a highlighted arc, connected to an (Import) output tab appears: Source.