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Chapter 2 Basic Operations

1. Starting EDD

1.1. Setting Your Path

Usually, you will run EDD from an EPICS application directory. This directory will have a link to an <EPICS-extensions>/bin directory, which is a sub-directory of a directory that contains all the EPICS non-core applications and tools for a certain EPICS release (3.11, 3.12, etc.). There may be more than one <EPICS-extensions>/bin directories, and some of these directories have differing versions of EDD. The link should point to the <EPICS-extensions>/bin directory that has the version of EDD and DM that is compatible with the dl files you wish to modify or create. Thus, you do not need to set your path in your UNIX environment files (.cshrc, for instance). In fact, you should not, sometimes, because in some systems there are different application directories to control different EPICS systems or sub-systems. The application directories may point to different <EPICS-extensions>/bin directories that have different versions of EDD, the version compatible with the dl files in the display list sub-directory of that directory. If you do work on more than one of these subsystems, you want to run the EDD version that is compatible with the dl files you are going to be using. (See Report Display in this chapter and the preface for information on version compatibility).

If you want to, you can set your path to the latest version. You will find the latest version of EDD (currently 2.4) in the <epics_extensions>/bin subdirectory under the latest EPICS release (currently R3.13).

Whatever the case, if you are uncertain about different versions of EDD and how to set your paths to the correct version, ask your system administrator for assistance.

1.2. Setting Your Environment Variables

You will need to set your EPICS_DISPLAY_PATH environment variable, though EDD will run without it. This environment variable tells EDD where to look for color template files and other files whose pathnames are not specified. (Color template files are explained in Chapter 3). For instance, if there is a directory called dl/ in the current directory and this directory is listed in your EPICS_DISPLAY_PATH environment variable, then you only have to specify the file's name, and EDD (or DM) will find it.

The set-environment command may look like this:

%setenv EPICS_DISPLAY_PATH ". : .dl/ : . :"
The directory list is enclosed in quotes and the directories are separated by colons. This particular environment variable setting causes EDD to search in the current directory (.), the display list directory (dl/) in the current directory, and the parent directory (..).

1.3. Starting EDD

You can start EDD with the following command:

%edd
If the command worked, a blank EDD display will appear in a window.

EDD may fail to start when you are running another application or applications in other windows that use a lot of colors. When this happens, after the loading fonts message, EDD will display an error message like the following:

Assertion failed:file "../color_map.c", line 272
The specified line number at the end of the message might be different, but when it displays this message you will know that this is the problem. What is happening is that EDD is refusing to start when the other application or applications are "hogging" the colors of the monitor. There is no remedy for this other than to quit the application or applications that are hogging the color map. This should be the only problem when starting that is not obvious to most users.

If you have any other problems starting EDD, contact the EPICS system manager or your system administrator.

You can specify a file as a command line argument that EDD will load when it starts. Remember that all display list files have the extension .dl and to include this extension in the file name. EDD can also load ASCII display list files, which have the extension .adl. We will discuss ASCII display list files later in this chapter; for now, you only have to know that you can load an ASCII file if you wish. Often, there will be a directory in the EPICS application directory called dl/ that will have the display list files in it. Include the file's relative pathname if the directory that contains the file is not specified in your EPICS_DISPLAY_PATH environment variable.

1.1. - Setting Your Path
1.2. - Setting Your Environment Variables
1.3. - Starting EDD
EDD/DM User's Manual, 2.4 - 27 MARCH 1997
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