Setting up Octave

Graphical user interface is a fairly new feature in Octave. So it might still have some bugs and lacks much of the functionality compared to MATLAB. Many use Octave from command-line interface and external text editor.

The graphical user interface offers many of the most used tools in a user-friendly way. Most importantly, the GUI combines the command prompt and the script editor.Most importantly, the GUI combines the command prompt and an interactive script editor.

Octave opens by default in the command-line interface, you can force the GUI by opening it with command octave --force-gui. You can save this in as a new command using command line alias.

The basic desktop layout of Octave 3.8.2 looks like this.


In the upper left pane, there is the file explorer (which now shows an empty folder). It can be used to navigate between folders or open files.
The center and lower left panes are workspace, which shows the saved variables and the command history. On the right the is command prompt, which is basically the same as the command-line interface. All commands can be entered through hear, but that's not often very practical.
In the right, there are also other tabs: editor is a built-in text editor for scripts and functions.

Now commands can be entered in the editor window, runing them with F5 or Run ("play") button, and getting the results in the Command Window.

All the panes can be moved, resized or hidden freely. Modify them as you like.