Menus in CIGAL's Graphical User Interface (GUI) provide an easy way to execute common CIGAL commands. The menus that appear by default include the File, Display, Showplay, Settings, and Help menus. The File menu, for example, allows you to find out about the version of CIGAL you are running, get a file name, set or show the current directory, find about about free disk space, and quit. The Display menu is where you can show an eyechart, watch pulse and respiration, view images or movies, and change the screen size (mode). (Note: Some operating systems currently require the screen size to be set in the backround settings). The ShowPlay menu is where you can show an example ShowPlay stimulus file or load and run your own, initialize variables and find help for ShowPlay, test the button box (Test I/O devices), and view an output 'pdigm' file. The Settings menu is where you can change ShowPlay settings for the '.ppf' file header (i.e. the screen, text, and font colors, the showbits, screen dimensions, and T_R), tell CIGAL to record heart and respiration, and change the sample rate for the button box. Finally, the Help menu contains all the help for CIGAL, including and introduction, a description of the syntax, the 'help' command, realtime commands and operators, and describe some known bugs.

Other menus may be added to these if you follow the proper menu syntax (see the example menu below) and include a simple 'start.imp' file that calls that menu in the directory where you start CIGAL and run your stimulus files. These can be very handy and are a reliable way of keeping track of stimulus run numbers and executing commands conveniently.

Displaying CIGAL Menus
Example CIGAL menus

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