Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"Szalata, Zenon M." <[email protected]> · Tue, 21 Feb 2012 14:34:06 -0800

Hi Andrew,
This is very interesting.
I am slowly moving in the direction of QT for our GUI needs at SLAC NLCTA project.  I am using epicsQt from Australian Synchrotron Lab for CA interface to qt.  Before I turned to qt, I have tried CSS/BOY.  My experience was that the Java/Eclipse aspect of CSS was for me too difficult to manage.  I find qt on the other hand, much more comprehensive and easy to deal with.  This might be in part that I do enjoy C++ programming and that is the essence of qt.
I think it would be very good if there was more coordinated approach to developing qt based tools.  I am using epicsQt and I am adding my own epics aware widgets to it and that inevitably leads to duplication of effort.  I am looking forward to a vigorous discussion of this at the next EPICS meeting.

Zen

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]]
> On Behalf Of Andrew Johnson
> Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2012 1:42 PM
> To: EPICS tech-talk
> Subject: QT-based tools: Expressions of interest requested
> 
> Control System Studio (CSS) is now 5+ years old and has an excellent and rich
> selection of tools for creating GUIs and other programs for interacting with
> an EPICS control system. However (there's always a "but" after that kind of
> introduction isn't there!) there are sites, systems, programs, places and
> people for which Java, Eclipse and/or SWT are not seen as a suitable
> environment. This message are not in any way trying to replace or denigrate
> CSS, it's about providing an alternative where CSS is not appropriate.
> 
> This is a call for expressions of interest in a collaboration to develop tools
> and technologies based on the QT toolkit. A number of EPICS users have
> spoken
> about QT (pronounced "cute")as the most obvious replacement for the X11
> and
> Motif tool-kits used by the old extensions MEDM, EDM, EDD/DM, dm2k, ALH,
> StripTool, Probe, Burt, etc. A number of QT-based projects have already been
> developed at various sites. If your lab/site/application has GUI needs which
> can't be fulfilled using CSS and you are interested in working together using
> QT, please respond to this email with what your needs and interests are, and
> what resources you might be able to contribute.
> 
> I hope to moderate a discussion on this "QT Initiative" at the EPICS meeting
> at SLAC in April; all interested parties welcome.
> 
> 
> The APS has a long-term need to replace the Motif-based programs MEDM,
> ALH and
> StripTool, which are heavily used by the operators in our control room and by
> other staff around the site. John Hammonds and various others have
> developed
> the ADL-to-BOY converter for CSS which is currently in use at one of the APS
> beamlines, but we don't believe that all of our current users will be willing
> or able to run CSS. We have a developer in our group who has fairly extensive
> QT experience, and are particularly interested in the EPICS QT work that has
> been developed at the Australian Synchrotron.
> 
> - Andrew
> --
> Optimization is the process of taking something that works and
> replacing it with something that almost works, but costs less.
> -- Roger Needham

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System