<h2> Overview </h2>

<p>
  An LTPDA Workbench is a collection of pipelines. Each pipeline can have sub-pipelines
  which are represented as <i>subsystem blocks</i> on the parent canvas. Nested subsystems
are supported to any depth. </p>
<p>  
  Only one LTPDA Workbench can be open at any one time, but a collection of pipelines
  in a workbench saved on disk can be imported to the current workbench.
</p>
<p>
  Each block/element must have a unique name on a particular canvas.
</p>
<p>
  The following annotated screen-shot describes the main elements of the workbench
  interface:
  <br>
  <img src="images/lwb_overview.png" alt="Workbench Overview" border="3">
  <br>
</p>

<h2> Starting the Workbench </h2>

<p>
  To start the LTPDA Workbench, click on the launcher on the LTPDA Launch Bay. Alternatively,
  the workbench can be started from the command window by typing:
  <div class="fragment"><pre>
      >> LTPDAworkbench
  </pre></div>
</p>
<p>
  You can also get a handle to the workbench so that you can use the programmatic interface. To do that
  <div class="fragment"><pre>
      >> wb = LTPDAworkbench
  </pre></div>
  
  If you loose the variable <tt>wb</tt>, for example, by using the <tt>clear</tt> command, then you can 
  retrieve a handle to the workbench by doing
  <div class="fragment"><pre>
      >> wb = getappdata(0, <span class="string">'LTPDAworkbench'</span>);
  </pre></div>
  
  More advanced uses of the workbench command interface (such as creating pipelines from LTPDA objects), are
  described in <a href="lwb_buildProgram.html">Building pipelines programatically</a>.
  
</p>