ChainLink Feature Overview

2D Plotting (Qwt)

Curves, markers, bars
Arbitrary colors, line styles, thickness
Axis labels, arbitrary fonts, log scale

3D Plotting

Surface plots (QwtPlot3D)
3D curves (libQGLViewer)
3D shapes (libQGLViewer)

Qt Widgets

QBoxLayout, QGridLayout, QLabel, QLineEdit, QPushButton, QSlider, QSplitter, QTabWidget, QTextBrowser, QWidget (generic), QMessageBox, ...

GUI development

Create dialog boxes with Qt components using matlab syntax
Handle user actions (signals) using callbacks within ChainLink scripts
See uidemo1.ch and uidemo2.ch

Image processing

Read and write image files
Manipulate image pixels within scripts
See qimage_library and demo3.ch

File I/O

fopen, fclose, fread, fwrite,
fgets, fputs, fseek

System

Robust syntax parser
Plugin library system

User interface

Built-in Script Editor
Built-in source code editor for plugin libraries
Syntax highlighting
Command history
Keyword completion
Auto-generated help system
Real-time function help
Error log
File browser
Variable browser
Library/function browser
'Stop' button

Mathematics

Real and complex numbers
Basic math and trig functions
Fourier transform (FFTW)
Vector, matrix operations
Multi-dimensional array operations
Random number generation (uniform, gaussian)
Basic statistics

And much more ...

ChainLink Scripts

ChainLink scripts define functions using matlab style syntax. They are interpretted, and do not need to be compiled.
To edit an existing script (or to create a new script), type

>> edit [script_name]

from within the ChainLink console.

All script files have a .ch or .m extention.
The first (non-comment) line of a script must have the form:

function [output_args] = function_name(input_args)

where function_name must coincide with the file name.

Scripts that are located in a subdirectory of chainlink/lib are accessible from any directory. Otherwise, you can only execute scripts in the current working directory.
Scripts can contain subfunctions -- these are only accessible from within the script file.