# pltSig.exe

The pltSig toolbox includes many useful applications in signal processing and other engineering and mathematical topics and some people would like to run this applications even though they don't have Matlab available to them. For these users, I have created a Windows application called pltSig.exe which can be run without having a Matlab license. pltSig.exe is not included with the Matlab toolbox, but you can download it from my website here: pltSigEXE.zip (24 Mbytes).
Unzip the archive to a folder of your choosing. Then you will see that the folder contains these two .exe files:

pltSig.exe | Double clicking on this file opens the pltSig window shown below, which allows you to run all the toolbox applications. (This window behaves quite similarly to the demoplt.m program included in the pltSig Matlab toolbox.) You will probably find it convenient to create an icon on your desktop for this application which you can do by right clicking and dragging the exe file from the file manager to the desktop and selecting "Create shortcuts here". I usually remove the " - Shortcut" and the end of the name by right clicking and selecting rename. This gives you the icon shown on the right.
erip.exe | This is the filter design application. Create the icon shown on the right using the same method described above for the pltSig.exe icon. Many users download pltSig.exe primarily to run this filter design application, which explains why I have included this exe file. However you don't really need this exe file nor its icon becuase you can also start the filter design application by clicking on the yellow erip button in the pltSig window (only slightly slower than using the erip icon.)

There will also be several dozen DLL files in this folder. Some cautious virus checkers may mark some of these DLL or EXE files as suspicious simply because they don't know what they are. However most of the DLL files have been created by the MathWorks (a well known and respected software supplier) and the Mathworks grants the right to distribute these DLLs as part of a compiled application. The presense of these DLL files will not effect any of the applications you may have on your system including Matlab if you also happened to have it installed. Four of the files (pltSig2.exe, plt.dll, pltinit.dll, and cur.dll) where created by me using the Matlab compiler (from Matlab ver 6.1). All the source code used to create these files is available in the pltSig toolbox which you can download for free from the Mathworks file exchange.
This is the figure you will see after clicking on the pltSig.exe icon. You may also see a large black figure window, but it will disappear after a few milliseconds (since that window is usually a distraction). However, if there are any error messages they will appear in that that black figure window. If you want to see these messages, you can prevent that window from disappearing in one of two ways. The first way is to rename the shortcut again to remove the .exe at the end of its name. The second way, is to rename the file dosHide.txt (in the ini folder) to dosShow.txt. (This works the same way for the erip.exe icon.)
You probably downloaded this Windows application because you wanted to run one of the signal processing applications (yellow buttons) or one of the math/engineering oriented programs (purple buttons). But before you click on one of those buttons to start the application of interest, I suggest that you start with the first green button on the upper left (plt5). Exploring this demo will help you understand how the zooming, panning, and cursoring operations work which will help you get the most from any of the applications you can start with pltSig.exe. While you are doing that, it will help to take a quick look at these sections of the help file:

- Preliminaries
- Cursoring
- Selecting traces
- Zooming & panning
- Right hand axis
- Menu box & menu bar

Clicking on the small help button to the right of the All Programs button brings up the plt.chm help file pointing at the section that you are now reading. While running any of the applications started from one of the yellow or purple buttons, clicking on the Help tag in the applications menu box will bring up this same help file, but pointing at the section relevant to that application.
Most of the remaining programs in the green button section are more oriented toward Matlab programmers, however, you also may find some of them interesting.
When you click on the "All Programs" button, the first demo program appears (plt5.m) and the All Programs button changes to a continue button. In addition, this figure appears above the plt5 window to remind you that you need to keep pressing the continue button to see the remaining demo programs. You won't usually want to run thru all the programs this way, although it is a good way to make sure that pltSig.exe was installed properly and all the applications run. You can also do this more quickly by right clicking on the All Programs button instead of left clicking. When you do that, all the programs will be executed in turn without waiting for you to press the continue button. However, all 37 programs will have been started and stopped in 10 or 20 seconds or so ... too fast to actually see what any of the applications are doing.
Although you will likely be satisfied with the figure colors, you can change the figure background color by right clicking on the edit box (that currently shows the color [0 .2 .3], and then selecting the color you want from the color pick pallet. You can also change the color of the top three rows of buttons by clicking on the button color.
If you change anything about the figure's appearance (colors, figure size, or figure position) then when you exit pltSig.exe it will give you the option of saving the current appearance so that it will look the same the next time pltSig is started.