The MD Link monitor's function is to communicate with the MD Link server. Since the MD Link server has no GUI, it needs a separate program in order for the user to administrate it - and the MD Link monitor is just that.
The first and most obvious function of the monitor is to display information about what is happening within the server. From here, the monitor can also send certain commands to the server, to influence what is happening within it.
The monitor communicates with the server over TCP/IP, so the monitor and server can be on different machines, as long as these machines can reach each other and are unimpeded by firewalls etc. By default the server listens on TCP port 9500.
To be precise, the monitor can be set up to communicate with any number of servers. For simplicity, and since most MD Link installations will only need one server, the following documentation will often refer to 'the server' when this in fact means 'any server that the MD Link monitor is pointed at.'
Start the monitor by selecting it from MD Link's start menu on Windows, or by running the 'monitor' executable on Unix.
Every text window in the Studio (and Monitor) has some standard keyboard shortcuts available. Press ctrl-f to bring up a Find dialog, ctrl-h for Find & Replace, and ctrl-g for Go To Line. Also, in editable text windows you can select multiple lines (with shift+arrows, or the mouse) and then press tab or shift-tab to do a multi-line indent or un-indent.