Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

I agree with Tom Cobb that it is not generally useful to create screens directly from a .db file.

Me too.  However, I'd guess the database developer has a pretty good
idea which fields are intended for modification and display by the user,
and which fields might usefully be archived, autosaved, etc.

What if vdct were to acquire a mechanism by which the database developer
could specify how specific fields are expected to be used?  Then
an automated display generator would have at least a prayer of getting
the right stuff on a display, in the right sort of widget.  I don't
think an autogenerated display will ever be the final thing to hand over
to a user, but it could take a lot of the grunt work out of the manual
display-development process.

Right now, vdct knows about the use to which a *record developer*
expected a field to be put (e.g., GUI_INPUT, etc.).  In my experience,
this has not been very useful, because the record developer's view
typically is too generic to make useful application-specific choices.

(BTW, we've been trying something sort of along these lines: most of the
databases in synApps are accompanied by an autosave-request file -- a
manually generated text file that lists the fields the database developer
thinks should be saved and restored on reboot.  In some cases, the database
developer is the only person with the information required to specify
which fields should be autosaved, because the developer knows how the
database's initialization strategy operates.  In practice, users/deployers
can override the database developer's choices, but they rarely do.)

--
Tim Mooney ([email protected]) (630)252-5417
Beamline Controls & Data Acquisition Group
Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Lab.

References:

RE: program for generating screens from database files? Rolf Keitel

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