XPP documentation to create job/div tools?

Question

Does documentation exist to create job and div tools? I searched through all the 8.4 PDFs I could find, and don't see anything related to job/div tools. If so, would you please point me to it? 
 I created a job tool to make a .ps file, and it works, but when the tool is run, I get a pop-up window with the name of the job tool in the title bar and nothing else. It disappears after a few seconds. It would be nice to turn it off, or make it more meaningful. Is this window an XPP default when a job/div tool is called? 
 
 Thanks,

Jonathan Dagresta · Accepted Answer

Hi Lee, 
 What I found in the XPP 8.4 manuals on this subject was on page 2-27 of Managing XPP (manxpp.pdf) "Adding Custom Applications to PathFinder" (which I found by searching the set of PDFs for "job tools"). 
 It doesn't go into much detail, other than to specify that a JOB tool is passed the JOB path and a DIV tool is passed the DIV path (and a site tool is not passed any argument). 
 You didn't specify what platform you are on nor what specific SP of XPP 8.4 you are running nor did you specify what language your tool is written in (Perl?). 
 XPP 8.4 is a retired release now (and we're no longer making patches to that release), so it's hard to say what you are seeing. Much has changed since then. 
 Typically many tools interact in some way with the user, and I think this "flashing" window is not as noticeable in that case (as usually the tool presents some "window" before much else happens). 
 I did run a few (Perl) Job Tools from PathFinder using XPP 8.4 (on Solaris platform) and it did seem like there was some "window" that flashed by (but so fast that I could not tell if it "matched" what you are describing). Then I ran the same Job Tools using XPP 9.2 (also on Solaris platform) and did not notice any "flashing" window at all. So it may be something that's been fixed along the way. 
 It's probably not anything you can "fix" by making changes to your Job Tool - it's more likely an effect of the way that PathFinder "executes" the Job Tools (that we may have tweaked).

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XPP documentation to create job/div tools?