7.1 The podium window

When you start the LispWorks IDE, by default a window known as the podium appears.

Figure 7.1 The LispWorks podium

The podium contains a menu bar, a toolbar, and a message pane that shows the active window; that is, the window on which commands chosen from the Works menu will have effect. The icons in the podium's toolbar access the Listener, Editor, Output Browser, Inspector, Class Browser, Generic Function Browser, Symbol Browser, Object Clipboard, Function Call Browser, System Browser, Compilation Conditions Browser, Search Files, Profiler, Tracer, Stepper, Window Browser, Process Browser, Shell and Application Builder tools. If you hold the mouse over these icons for a second, the corresponding tool name will appear as floating help text.

The IDE tools have most of these menu items in common with the podium.

The menu bar contains eight menus:

• The Works menu contains commands that operate on the current window.The File menu contains commands that open, load, save and compile Lisp files.
• The Edit menu contains commands that copy and paste text and also Lisp objects, find and replace text, and establish links between tools.
• The Tools menu contains commands to create and configure the LispWorks IDE tools.
• The Debug menu is enabled only when the debugger has been entered in the Listener tool. It contains commands which perform operations on the current stack frame.
• The History menu accesses the recent events or objects browsed in the active tool window.
• The Windows menu lists all the current windows in the environment. In MDI mode, it contains standard commands for arranging your windows. To make any window the active window, choose it from this menu.
• The Help menu contains commands described in Getting Help.

Users already familiar with Windows will notice that the File menu contains commands available in the File menu of other applications.

The toolbar provides quick access to some of the more common commands in the menus. LispWorks podium buttons and their functions shows each button, together with the menu command it represents.

Figure 7.2 LispWorks podium buttons and their functions

If you run the Windows version of LispWorks in the default Multiple Document Interface (MDI) mode, then the podium menus and tool icons are located at the top of the MDI window (see MDI Interface in LispWorks for Windows).

LispWorks IDE User Guide (Windows version) - 25 Nov 2011