The scripts used by Owl are written in “loosely” typed Java and interpreted using the BeanShell interpreter. Details on the BeanShell interpreter can be found at http://www.beanshell.org/ and general Java tutorials can be found at http://www.java.sun.com. The BeanShell interpreter conforms to Java SE1.4, which does not support generics in the collections classes (such as ArrayList, etc). The Owl installation directory contains a sub-directory called “Scripts”, which contains a set of scripts used by Owl that can be used for reference. These scripts can also be called by other (user-defined) scripts. Users are urged to not store scripts in this directory, as any future upgrades of the program may result in loss of your scripts.

The scripts areinterpreter has several built in constants and classes that may useful when writing scripts:

bitmapPath ( String )
bitmapPath;
A String object that contains the full path to the bitmap directory in the Owl installation directory. The icons in this directory can be used within scripts if needed. The default path is: /bitmaps/.

xmlPath ( String )
xmlPath;
A String object that contains the full path to the XML directory in the Owl installation directory. The xml files in this directory can be used within scripts if needed. The default path is: /xml/. This is mostly for FITS headers and users can store there own files in this directory or in their own.

interp ( Class )
interp;
A reference to the Bean Shell interpreter. In general, scripts should have no reason to access the interpreter, but it is there in case. This is a large and fully documented class that can be found here.