This minitutorial discusses several topics:

Getting things Started

Lispworks is a modern full featured Lisp environment. At the present time it only works on CoC workstations. With luck and some convincing it may start to show up on OIT workstations in the near future ( however don't hold your breadth).

You can start the environment by just typing lispworks at the Unix prompt. What you should see is something like:

Starting lispworks ...
LispWorks: The Common Lisp Programming Environment
Copyright Harlequin Group Limited 1987--1994
Saved by root as /net/local7/LispWorks/lispworks, at 16:52  7/3
Version 3.2.1

User lyman on cleon
; Loading text file /net/ha14/lyman/.lispworks

CL-USER 4 > 

CL-USER 5 >

The prompt consists of the shortest nickname for the current package. The initial package is COMMON-LISP-USER ( if you don't know what a package is then don't worry about it ). At this point you can enter Common Lisp code as you would to any other Lisp environment.

To exit LispWorks evaluate the following expression

		(bye)

Initialization File

An initialization file allows the users to evaluate expression upon every start up. In you HOME directory create a file called .lispworks. For instance my file looks like:
;; This is Lyman's configuration file for LispWorks.
;; I've tweaked the system a bit to make it a more
;; enjoyable experience for me. 

;; See files in /usr/local/lispworks/config/
;;  for the normal bindings.
;;

;;;; "Additions" to LispWorks

;; Added to discriminate between from the "old" code.
(push :CLtL2 *features* )

;;;; GNU Emacs Mode and other command modifications


;; Make pring command print to hobbes.
(setf lw:*print-command* "lpr -Phobbes" )

;;;; Key Binding modifications 

;; Backsapce key deletes the previous character.
(editor::bind-key "Delete Previous Character Expanding Tabs" #\Backspace )

;;;; Load ilisp stuff in case running under Xemacs 

(load "~lyman/pub/lisp/xemacs_lispworks/ilisp-pkg" )
(load "~lyman/pub/lisp/xemacs_lispworks/clisp" )
(load "~lyman/pub/lisp/xemacs_lispworks/lispworks" )


;;; EOF

This code adds a feature so that my CLtL2 specific code can know that it running in a CLtL2 environment. The other stuff is pretty self explanatory. Under Xemacs if you just load the ilisp library and enter M-x run-ilisp and answer lispworks to the dialect then Lispworks will run in the inferior mode. It should also run under GNU emacs if the configured properly. [ There are other tutorials on how to work with Lispworks under Emacs. ]

Starting the GUI

The default lispworks image has a built in GUI. If you are on a unix box then entering the expression
	(tools:start-lispworks )
will start the GUI interface. Initially you are presented with a GC Monitor Window and a Lispworks/Echo-Buffer Window. From the latter you can create Editor and Listener windows. The X-window from where you entered the above expression into will also contain an active Listener. You make background that process now it you wish. The environment is threaded so that multiple Listeners, Editors, etc. all operate concurrently.

When you are ready to quit you can select Exit Lispworks from the Lispworks Window's Appl Menu. This will remove all of the Windows and exit the Listener which invoked the GUI in the first place.

Other pointers

On the Lispworks Window you will see a Menu called Manuals. On-Line version of the Lispworks manuals are avaialble. It takes a while to start up, but you once need to start it once.


Back to HLW and Tool Time

Last modified: by Lyman S. Taylor(lyman@cc.gatech.edu)
(c) copyright Lyman S. Taylor 1995, All rights reserved