Clicking on the "HELP" button in a dialog box, or on the HELP icon near the command line will take you to the relevant help page.

You can customize OSLO's behavior by setting "preferences". Look on the File menu.

You can customize MENUS and TOOLBARS. See HELP for details.

Right-click pops up a list of relevant actions in graphics, text, and spreadsheet windows.

Spreadsheets are data entry windows. The main spreadsheet contains buttons that you can click to open dozens of other spreadsheets. Some spreadsheets update the lens as you enter new data; others only update data after they are closed. 

You can accept the changes you make in a spreadsheet by either clicking the green check mark icon or hitting "SHIFT+ENTER", or discard the changes by either clicking the red cross icon or hitting "SHIFT+ESC".

You can configure the status bar to have up to 16 parts, and make CCL commands that display custom values in the status bar.

You can insert rows in any spreadsheet by pressing "SHIFT+SPACE" by clicking on the insert row icons near the command line, by right-clicking on any cell in a spreadsheet with row buttons, and choosing "insert before/after", or by using the Edit menu.

Operating Conditions are data that are saved with a lens, but are not associated with a particular surface. Examples of conditions include the aperture and field angle, the description of rays to be shown on lens drawings, and the number of aperture divisions for computing spot diagrams.

Each Operating Condition has a default value that can be changed for a particular lens, usually by making an entry in a spreadsheet. Conditions that have been set to non-default values are saved in the lens file and will maintain their saved values when the lens is re-opened. 

Preferences are data that are associated with the program, not the lens. Examples include directory locations, items to show on the status bar, the maximum number of rays or wavelengths, etc. Most Preferences can be set by the user, but some, for example the window locations, are updated automatically by the program. 

Preferences are saved in the oslo.ini file and are set to their saved values when the program is re-started. Some preferences, like the maximum number of wavelengths, are essentially static, while others such as the mode of the text output window are changed frequently during normal operation.

Operands are terms in the error function. Each operand consists of one or two components. A component could be an optical quantity, a user-computed value, or a previously defined operand. You can learn which items can be used as components by clicking the Help button in the operands spreadsheet. 

Operands are always targeted to zero during optimization. When you want to have a non-zero target, you include the target value as the second component in the operand definition.

You can have 2 text windows and 32 graphics windows open at the same time!

You can have your own set of default Operating Conditions by editing the opc_init command.

The term Aperture describes the size of a beam incident on a lens, and also a region on a lens surface. The beam aperture is specified in the paraxial setup spreadsheet, or on the second line of the Surface Data spreadsheet. Surface apertures are specified in the Aperture column of the Surface Data spreadsheet. 

Hitting SHIFT+SPACE will insert a new row in the current spreadsheet.

The default shape of both the beam and surface apertures is circular. The aperture value is the radius of the circle. The size of the beam must be at least as large as the surface apertures if the system is to be fully illuminated.

You can reorganize all your windows by clicking on the Window Setup icon and selecting Tile All Windows, or typing TILE in the command line. You can modify the CCL Tile command to create your own  window layouts.

Selecting "Fix" from the glass options menu will find the closest catalog glass for a model glass.

Each surface can have multiple transmitting, obstructing, or pass-through special apertures of different types and shapes. Special apertures can be elliptical, rectangular, triangular, or quadrilateral, or any shape specified by combinations of these types (OSLO Premium). 

OSLO automatically creates dialog boxes for your CCL commands.

You can get help about a specific spreadsheet by clicking on the help icon near the command line.

Special Data are data associated with surfaces, other than the radius of curvature, thickness, aperture, and glass. Special data are usually entered by clicking the SPECIAL button in the main spreadsheet. 

You can configure the surface data spreadsheet to display either the radius or the curvature, depending upon your preference.

Paraxial solves and pickups are mathematical constraints and are always satisfied (unless there is a math exception such as division by zero). Operand constraints are subject to the laws of physics and may not be satisfied if there are no values of the data that permit the desired performance.

You can scroll through the history buffer by pressing the CONTROL+PAGE UP and CONTROL+PAGE DOWN keys.

OSLO has an "UNDO" feature that will restore your previous system. You need to close (SHIFT+ESC or Red Cross Icon) the surface editor, and reopen it: OSLO will restore the last system you validated (SHIFT+ENTER or Green Check icon)

If you enter a command but omit a required argument, you will be prompted for it. When a command does not appear to work, check the command prompt to make sure it is not waiting for you to enter an argument.

You can change the color used for shaded lens drawings. Look in the lens drawing conditions.

Arguments, also called parameters, are data that provide values to commands or functions. Arguments can be either scalars or one or two-dimensional arrays, and can be of type double, int, or char, according to the argument definition.

OSLO includes a built-in plotting kit, which will help you easily plot your data on curves, maps or pseudo-3D graphics. See GPLOT in help for more information.

OSLO can trace rays through uniaxial birefringent materials like calcite.

Most special data memory is allocated only when requested by the user. This means that the number of special data items can be specified on an as-needed basis, without requiring large static memory allocation.

You can obtain the command definition for any command by entering it in the command line and then clicking the HELP button.

Multiple arguments in the command line can be enclosed in parentheses and separated by commas, or separated by spaces, but not a mixture of the two forms.

OSLO has many acceleration keys. See shortcuts list for more info. You can also edit your own acceleration keys.

When you don’t know the arguments required for a command, type the name of the command followed by a space and a question mark. Example: "PWF ?"

Hitting SHIFT+ENTER will accept the changes and close the current spreadsheet, while SHIFT+CANCEL will discard all changes that were made in the current spreadsheet. SHIFT+CANCEL also gives you the option to restore the data to its state when the spreadsheet was opened.

You can select and copy, modify the color of text in the output window by right-clicking in the window.

You can enter several commands in one command line by separating them with a semicolon.

Constraints are data specified by a performance requirement. Paraxial solves and pickups are constraints, as are operand constraints in the error function definition. Paraxial solves and pickups are resolved when a lens is set up. Constraints specified by operands are resolved during an optimization iteration. 

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