Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"Kasemir, Kay" <[email protected]> · Fri, 06 Jun 2008 09:18:59 -0400

Hi:

> From: Russell Kackley [mailto:[email protected]]
> Subject: RE: Archive Viewer web start
> 
> I noticed that in this message you mention that the "CSS Data Browser"
is
> now your archive interface. Is this a web-based interface? Also, is it
> something that is available to the EPICS community?

No, it's not a web based interface, it's a Java application.
It offers several advantages over the previous Java archive viewer:
- Application doesn't stop while you search for channels or retrieve
  data. That's all handled in background threads.
- If data for a channel is in more than one sub-archive like
  "all" and "all-current", it's no longer necessary to add
  that channel twice. Instead, data for the same channel can
  come from multiple archives.
- Data can also come from "live" channels, i.e. it's like
  StripTool and archive_viewer in one.
  In total, it currently supports
  * Channel Access
  * Channel Archiver's XML-RPC data server
  * DESY AAPI data server
  * DESY Archive Record
  * Some other DESY data logger
- Overall usability niceties.
  If you want to change the lower axis limit in StripTool, it's
  something like open config, "modify", enter new value, "modify".
  Now it's just open config, enter new value.
  There are the same up/down/zoom buttons that StripTool offers,
  but you can select a Y axis and then they only apply to that axis.
  No more environment variables like EPICS_CA_... because there are
  now preference pages for it, plus online help.
  When you have several Data Browser plots open, they share the same
  config view (just like multiple Word documents share the same font
  config panel etc.)  
- Interfaces with other CSS tools:
  You can send a PV name to 'Probe' or the EPICS PV Tree or ....
  If you find a PV name in the DESY name space tool or SNS PV tool,
  you can right-click on it and send it to a new Data Browser,
  or drag/drop to an existing etc.
- Includes a "Post Analyzer" for simple line fitting, FFT, correlation.
- It can save images to file, print, and if you implement the glue code,
  it can send images to your electronic logbook.

It's available for download from
a) css.desy.de
b) ics-web.sns.ornl.gov/css

So while it's somewhere up there with sliced bread and canned beer,
there is of course also a disadvantage: You probably want to
arrange the CSS packaging for your site.

What you get from a) is a CSS app that asks for a DESY user/password,
sends log messages to the DESY JMS server, and otherwise does nothing
until you install the features that you actually want.

What you get from b) is a CSS app with all the archiver and EPICS
things,
preconfigured for the SNS CA gateway, archive server, logbook, plus a
tool to look at PV info in the SNS Oracle database. It's clearly meant
for SNS people.

Neither a) nor b) will be perfect for you. Instead, you need
to find an Eclipse guru at your place to join the CSS collaboration and
create a CSS packaging (select plugins, create startup code) for your
site, then work with us to see if we can somehow create a combined,
configurable startup code that would work for all of us.

-Kay

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System