Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"Pelaia II, Tom" <[email protected]> · Wed, 09 Dec 2009 13:37:43 -0500

Yes, it is certainly true that the Plugin isn't appropriate for all use cases (e.g. remote users), but no more so than installing EDM or any other native channel access client. The WebCA plugin simply provides a JavaScript API wrapper for the native CA libraries that drives CAML (declarative language) which provides a collection of controls to display.

To eliminate the need for a plugin for remote users, we are developing a CA web service. One could then have access to the very same CAML pages with or without the plugin. The plugin is ideal for local development and inside of a controls network since you wouldn't have the overhead of running a service, but zero installation is often the better alternative for many users.

best regards,
tom

On Dec 9, 2009, at 12:48 PM, Pawel Kowalski - BiRa Systems Inc. wrote:

Thank you Tom, this looks interesting. I will be looking at this but it
would be nice having something that didn't require any browser plugins. I'm
also gonna play around with the PHP extension for channel access which would
make the server side coding extremely simple. The client javascript portion
would be a little bit more complex so I'll see if I can justify taking on
that development when CAML is already out. I'm going to have to find out how
much value something like that would have to our users.

------------------------------------

Pawel Kowalski
BiRa Systems Inc.
www.bira.com<http://www.bira.com>

Phone: 505-881-8887
Fax: 505-888-0651

Address: 2410 Midtown PL NE
      STE A
      Albuquerque NM 87107 USA

-----Original Message-----
From: Pelaia II, Tom [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 10:23 AM
To: Pawel Kowalski - BiRa Systems Inc.
Cc: Tech-talk
Subject: Re: EDM on Cygwin

Hi,

Have you considered CAML (Channel Access Markup Language)? CAML is a XHTML
namespace and consists of a collection of EPICS Channel Access controls
which you can embed within standard HTML. Channel Access is made through a
browser plugin.

CAML works with modern, standards compliant browsers such as Firefox and
Safari and runs on Linux, Mac and Windows. For ease of distribution, I
developed a Mac installer and SLAC developed a Windows installer. Of course,
it is open source, so you are free to build from the source code if you
prefer.

It also has a EDM to CAML generator.

Work is continuing on CAML to dramatically improve performance of charts,
improve the EDM to CAML converter, and provide a service fallback when the
end user doesn't have or want the plugin.

For more information, contact me and/or visit:
http://www.ornl.gov/~t6p/Main/CAML.html

best regards,
tom

On Dec 9, 2009, at 11:38 AM, Pawel Kowalski - BiRa Systems Inc. wrote:

Thanks Mark and John. This might be the excuse I was looking for to develop
a web based AJAX interface for our application so that the control panels
can be platform independent.

------------------------------------

Pawel Kowalski
BiRa Systems Inc.
www.bira.com<http://www.bira.com>

Phone: 505-881-8887
Fax: 505-888-0651

Address: 2410 Midtown PL NE
     STE A
     Albuquerque NM 87107 USA

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Rivers [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 9:35 AM
To: Pawel Kowalski - BiRa Systems Inc.; John William Sinclair; Tech-talk
Subject: RE: EDM on Cygwin

Not that I know of.

Note that you can run edm on a Linux machine, for example, and display
on Windows with an X package like Exceed.  Since edm is a channel access
client it does not need to run on the same machine as your IOC.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Pawel Kowalski - BiRa Systems Inc. [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 10:33 AM
To: Mark Rivers; 'John William Sinclair'; 'Tech-talk'
Subject: RE: EDM on Cygwin

Is there a tool that can convert EDM screens to MEDM screens (I see
there is
adl2edl for doing this in reverse)?

------------------------------------

Pawel Kowalski
BiRa Systems Inc.
www.bira.com

Phone: 505-881-8887
Fax: 505-888-0651

Address: 2410 Midtown PL NE
     STE A
     Albuquerque NM 87107 USA

-----Original Message-----
From: Mark Rivers [mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 9:24 AM
To: John William Sinclair; Pawel Kowalski - BiRa Systems Inc.; Tech-talk
Subject: RE: EDM on Cygwin

medm can be built on Windows, but you can also download a pre-built
version from the EPICS Web pages:

http://www.aps.anl.gov/epics/distributions/win32/index.php

It definitely works with Exceed, but also with some other free X
packages.

Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of John William
Sinclair
Sent: Wednesday, December 09, 2009 10:17 AM
To: Pawel Kowalski - BiRa Systems Inc.; Tech-talk
Subject: Re: EDM on Cygwin

Pawel,

EDM will never, ever build on cygwin.

Note that a new initiative is in the works to build control system gui
tools using the eclipse
RCP platform. This will give you access from windows.

There is also an older display manager, MEDM, which I believe will
compile in a windows
environment with certain  3rd party X Windows tools. I don't know the
details but someone
on the tech-talk list may be able to help.

John Sinclair

Pawel Kowalski - BiRa Systems Inc. wrote:

Hello,

I am having an issue with getting EDM to compile on cygwin. I noticed
that in the EDM documentation it says that LessTif is not recommended;

but that seems to be the only option available with cygwin as I can't
find the OpenMotif package. Is this my issue or am I doing something
else wrong? I also saw that the makefiles under EDM set
SHARED_LIBRARIES = YES, is this a problem under cygwin?

I attached the make log, help would be appreciated.

------------------------------------

Pawel Kowalski

BiRa Systems Inc.

www.bira.com <http://www.bira.com>

*Phone:*                   505-881-8887

*Fax:*                       505-888-0651

*Address:*                2410 Midtown PL NE

STE A

Albuquerque NM 87107 USA

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pawel Kowalski@bira-a4f57d2df6 /epics/base/extensions/src/edm
$ make
make -C ./util install
make[1]: Entering directory `/epics/base/extensions/src/edm/util'
make -C O.cygwin-x86 -f ../Makefile TOP=../../../.. T_A=cygwin-x86
install
make[2]: Entering directory
`/epics/base/extensions/src/edm/util/O.cygwin-x86'
make[2]: *** No rule to make target `../O.Common/os.h', needed by
`inc'.  Stop.
make[2]: Leaving directory
`/epics/base/extensions/src/edm/util/O.cygwin-x86'
make[1]: *** [install.cygwin-x86] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `/epics/base/extensions/src/edm/util'
make: *** [util.install] Error 2

______________
Tom Pelaia, Ph.D.
Application Programming Team Leader
Accelerator Physics Group
Research Accelerator Division
Spallation Neutron Source
Oak Ridge National Lab
homepage: http://www.ornl.gov/~t6p

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System