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While the IPAT-S interpreter simply takes a text file (an IPAT-S script) and produces text output, two programs in the IPAT-S suite, IPAT Studio and IPAT Scenario Navigator offer a graphical user interface (GUI) to an IPAT-S script.
IPAT Scenario Navigator is a program for interactively exploring a scenario. It is intended for use in presentations and stakeholder meetings, and by domain experts. The screen is split into a panel with sliders, entry windows and other input elements, and a panel with indicator graphs. The user can change the inputs and view how the indicators change.
IPAT Studio is a development environment (and IDE) for developing IPAT-S scripts. It has a special mode for viewing a user interface. The interface can be developed and modified in IPAT Studio before sharing it with others using IPAT Scenario Navigator.
The IPAT-S interpreter only produces text output. The commands for the interface are contained in IPAT-S comments. The interpreter ignores them, but they are used to create the interface in IPAT Studio and IPAT Scenario Navigator. The comments appear at the end of a line with a key input (in angle brackets, < >) and start with a command like SLIDER or SPINNER.
