Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

Jim Thomas <[email protected]> · Tue, 30 Apr 2002 15:27:56 -1000 (HST)

>>>>> "John" == John Maclean <[email protected]> writes:

 John> A new build (1228) of VDCT is available from 

 John> http://kgb.ijs.si/VisualDCT/

In the interest of saving others some time, plus a couple comments, ...

(environment: W2000SP1, JSE2 1.4.0, VDCT 1232)

It would help if the VDCT page provided a bit more guidance as to the
minimum things to download for trial (plain binary w/o JAXP and user
manual, I think?).

The user manual says to point at kgb.vdct.VisualDCT .  The current class
name seems to be com.cosylab.vdct.VisualDCT ?  Then the usage line should
be:

     java com.cosylab.vdct.VisualDCT [<DBD>] [<DB>]

, right?  (strings is your friend :-)  Could it be made a bit more obvious?

In the Edit menu, "Move/rename" might be more obvious if it said
"mv/rename".  I tried to get it to move an object and wondered "how do it
know" :-)  (But then I have the same gripe about symed Draw Circle/Arc.)

After creating a few objects (2 ao's and an ai) the create dialog box seems
broken.  If I try to create another object of a different type, after I
select the new type, I can no longer get the cursor to appear in the Name
field.  Fortunately, it has switched types so clicking Cancel and trying
again does work, but ...  Anyone else have this problem?

It seems to get a bit confused with where the connecting "wires" should
go.  Make an ai.  Make an ao to the left of it.  Connect ao.OUT to ai.VAL
.  Make another ai to the left of the ao, lining up the tops of the two
symbols, and putting them fairly close together (I've got 2 grid dots
showing).  Then hook ao.DOL to ai2.VAL .  The "wire" I get comes across
from ai2 almost all the way to ao , then down and seemingly to the left
through the NPP NMS, as if ai2 really wanted to be further to the left.

When I printed the result, the leftmost vertical line was dropped, both on
page preview and on paper.  I think this is because the line was off the
window edge.  The preview mode was "fit to paper".  Should this perhaps
read "fit view to paper"?  Should there also be a "fit drawing to paper"?
Why is the default preview scale 25%?  For speed?

Overall, in spite of the above comments, it looks really nice.  But..... it
really really needs text blocks for annotations.  The user manual says
that's on the list.  I'm hesitant to start using it without being able to
comment things visibly on the drawing.  There doesn't even seem to be any
way to label a whole page.

What is the intention for printing hardcopies?  I'd like something that
came out at a predictable scale/size.  CapFast does that by borders and fit
drawing to paper.  Since there are no borders here there's nothing
equivalent.  I just tried mode 1:1, and it previewed my drawing on 4
sheets.  Those 4 did not seem to have any relation to the drawing area
shown on the navigator inset.  IMHO things need to be predictable to work
well - either by being "obvious" or by providing some kind of training to
clue me in to what to expect :-)

Next I tried scale and setting 200%.  That doubled the drawing scale as
expected.  I switched back to "fit to paper".  The 200% field specification
disappeared, but that scale is still being used^H^H^H, no it was used once
on "fit to paper", but I can't reproduce it.

In the Save As dialog, most Windows programs add the "type"/"extension"
automatically (even if one doesn't want it :-) .  Here one has to type
foo.db to get it named .db .

Thanks for listening,
Jim

=================================== 8< -----------------------------------

#! Generated by VisualDCT for Java v2.1

record(ao,g1:ao2) {
  field(OUT,"g1:ai1.VAL")
  field(DOL,"g1:ai2.VAL")
}

# main analog output
record(ao,g1:ao1) {
  field(SCAN,"10 second")
  field(FLNK,"g1:ai1")
  field(OMSL,"supervisory")
}

# my analog input
record(ai,g1:ai1) {
  field(DESC,"analogue guy")
  field(FLNK,"g2:ai1")
}

record(ai,g1:ai2) {
}

#! Further lines contain layout data used by VisualDCT

#! Group(g1,2300,2460,0,"")
#! Record(g1:ao2,2280,2540,0,1,"g1:ao2")
#! Field("g1:ao2.OUT",0,1,"g1:ao2.OUT")
#! Link("g1:ao2.OUT","g1:ai1.VAL")
#! Field("g1:ao2.DOL",0,0,"g1:ao2.DOL")
#! Link("g1:ao2.DOL","g1:ai2.VAL")
#! Record(g1:ao1,2280,2360,0,1,"g1:ao1")
#! Field("g1:ao1.FLNK",0,1,"g1:ao1.FLNK")
#! Link("g1:ao1.FLNK",g1:ai1)
#! Record(g1:ai1,2640,2420,0,0,"g1:ai1")
#! Field("g1:ai1.VAL",0,0,"g1:ai1.VAL")
#! Field("g1:ai1.FLNK",0,1,"g1:ai1.FLNK")
#! Record(g1:ai2,2060,2540,0,1,"g1:ai2")
#! Field("g1:ai2.VAL",0,1,"g1:ai2.VAL")

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System