The Python interface to OrcaFlex was introduced in 2008 alongside version 9.2 and has been steadily growing in popularity. The Python interface exposes the functionality of OrcaFlex to the Python programming language. The ability to automate OrcaFlex this way is extremely powerful.

However, writing programs to automate OrcaFlex can be a daunting task, especially to many OrcaFlex users who typically are not experienced programmers. The documentation for the Python interface is a useful reference once you know your way around, but does not provide a simple introduction for beginners. This year we have attempted to address that concern by developing and running Python workshops, which have proved to be very popular.

In order that as many of our users as possible can benefit from these workshops, we are making available the primary document produced for the workshops. This is a high level overview and introduction to the Python interface that attempts to fill in some of the gaps not covered by the reference documentation. This introduction document can be downloaded from our documentation page. As well as the document, all Python source files from the document are included as a convenience.

We hope that this improvement to our documentation will make the Python interface more accessible. If any of our users have further suggestions for improvement, we welcome them.