Essential Resources for JSL Scripting

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I get questions from JMP users that are trying to move forward with their JSL scripting. Here, I list the essential resources that I think people need to become a better scripter.

The first thing I think people need for any intermediate level of scripting are the following four resources:

1)  The Scripting Guide from the Documentation. You can find an online version here, or install this add-in to pull up the pdf version inside of JMP. 

2) The JSL Syntax Guide from the Documentation. Like the Scripting Guide, you can find it online here or install (the same as above) this add-in to use the individual pdf inside of JMP. 

3) The book JMP into JMP Scripting by Murphey and Lucas. This is an excellent book for getting started scripting. 

4) The book JSL Companion: Applications of the JMP Scripting Language, Second Ed. by Utlat, Morgan, and Anderson.  This book is very good at describing how to approach and execute industrial problems. If you don't know much about JSL, be sure and get the other book as well. 

Also, to learn code I like to look at code that experts have written. Both books (#3 and #4 above), have free code to download and look at. Just go to the linked pages above, scroll to the bottom of the page that says "Details", and there is a link for "Example Code and Data". You do have to sign in to download this, but it's free. 

Once you're inside of JMP, here's a few places to look. First, you can make JSL editing more friendly by adjusting the preferences. Some of the things I like to do include turn line numbers on and show embedded log in the script window.

On the Mac, Preferences are under the JMP menu.

On Windows, Preferences are under the File menu.

 

The most useful tool for scripting inside of JMP is under the Help Menu and is called the Scripting Index. You can search by key word, and the commands are nested in the two columns. 

 

When you're inside the Scripting Index, and you're using a command, you have an interactive scripting window with the log below it. You can read about the command, run the example script, see the log, and in general use this as a sandbox to experiment with JSL commands.

For example, using the Charater command Length, I can see in the log the answer to the question "How long is the word "café"?" is 4.  I can type another word instead of "café" and see the result in the log. Other examples launch analyses, create dialog boxes, etc.

There are several Mastering JMP videos to learn more too - check some of them out!

These are all the essential JMP JSL Scripting resources I like - do you have some I've missed?