To use the academic version of topas or to unleash the power of the many features that can't be accessed through the gui mode of the commercial version, topas can be controlled using text based input files. In Durham we've been using “jedit” which is a freely downloadable editor to work with topas input files. jedit has a powerful macro language that lets you customise it to work with input files. The files can be colour-coded to make them easy to view. You can also run programmes from within jedit which allows you to control topas and its ancillary programmes from within the editor. jedit macros considerably speed up the writing/editing of topas input files. If you want to use our jedit menus then final responsibility for the suitability of the resulting .inp files lies with you.

jedit is a powerful free java based editor that makes it extremely easy to work with topas input files. With jedit you can:

• Colour code your input files to highlight keywords/refined values/etc
• Quickly produce input files from scratch without having to remember topas key words using the xinsert plugin
• Use predictive typing (ctrl-b) to autocomplete topas keywords
• launch external programmes (such as topas academic) from within the editor
• write your own macros to perform common tasks
• etc

For more information on setting up jedit for topas:

http://www.dur.ac.uk/john.evans/topas_academic/jedit_main.htm

For more information on jedit itself:

http://community.jedit.org/cgi-bin/TWiki/view/Main/

For Alan's tips on jEdit go to: using jEdit