## 3.8 Accessing the IDE from your program

Over the years a collection of IDE components have been developed, each with their own interface. In addition, some of these components require each other and loading IDE components must be on demand to avoid the IDE being part of a saved-state (see qsave_program/2). For this reason, access to the IDE will be concentrated on a single interface called prolog_ide/1:

prolog_ide(+Action)
  This predicate ensures the IDE enabling XPCE component is loaded, creates the XPCE class prolog_ide and sends Action to its one and only instance `\index{@prolog_ide}\objectname{prolog_ide}`. Action is one of the following:
  open_navigator(+Directory)
    Open the Prolog Navigator (see section 3.6) in the given Directory.
  open_debug_status
    Open a window to edit spy- and trace-points.
  open_query_window
    Opens a little window to run Prolog queries from a GUI component.
  thread_monitor
    Open a graphical window indicating existing threads and their status.
  debug_monitor
    Open a graphical front-end for the `library(debug)` library that provides an overview of the topics and catches messages.
  xref
    Open a graphical front-end for the cross-referencer that provides an overview of predicates and their callers.