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<== Date ==> <== Thread ==>

Subject: RE: QT-based tools: Expressions of interest requested
From: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>
Date: Wed, 29 Feb 2012 08:16:22 +0000
Hi Elder

Is the source for PyEdm available? This is the most complete EDM replacement I have seen.

James

________________________________________
From: [email protected] [[email protected]] on behalf of Elder Matias [[email protected]]
Sent: 29 February 2012 04:07
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: QT-based tools: Expressions of interest requested

Wow, this is a hot topic.

I am going to stay out of the argument on what makes the best display manager, each lab/project needs to make that decision for themselves.  I will provide some insight into what we are doing at CLS......

We have almost no MEDM at CLS, we adopted EDM early on when building the facility and like APS we now face the problem that EDM is built on Motif and Motif is near the end of it's useful life.  To address this problem Glen Wright has been working on a Python (with Qt) display tool that is able to display EDM files.  There is a presentation on it from the last EPICS Collaboration meeting.

We have been using Qt for many year and are happy Qt users when building our data acquisition applications.  Increasingly we are using Python for some of our other applications.  Python and Qt actually work quite well together.  Being able to build Qt based beamline data acquisition applications that permit embedding EDM screens (using the Python EDM tool) is compelling in our environment.

We have looked at CSS.  For the past two years we have used the CSS alarm handler.  We are quite happy with it's alarm management capabilities.  We currently have nearly 5,000 data points being monitored by the CSS alarm handler and are progressively moving the use of the CSS alarm handler into other areas of the facility.   We don't use alh at CLS.

We also looked at CSS-BOY (piloting a few screens using BOY) and at the end of the day we have backed out and decided not to use BOY.  If we were building a new facility from scratch there is a good chance we would have adopted BOY.  However that is not the situation we are in; we have an enormous investment in EDM screens and the ability to integrate EDM screens with Qt/Python based data acquisition applications is a strong motivator for us.

Elder


________________________________
From: "Claude Saunders" <[email protected]>
To: [email protected], [email protected]
Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2012 10:07:43 AM
Subject: Re: QT-based tools: Expressions of interest requested

This is no knock on CSS-BOY at all, but I'll give you one concrete
example. For a facility that has been running with MEDM for ages (ex.
APS), the operations group typically has crafted scripts that populate a
dozen monitors with hundreds of pre-arranged, tiled sets of ADL screens.
And there are many other simple Tcl/Tk GUIs that pop up sets of screens
in hardcoded locations for particular needs.

Re-engineering all that to work with how CSS-BOY/Eclipse manages the
workspace could be viewed as prohibitive. So a replacement tool that
allows for X-geometry placement of individual screens would be much
easier to switch to.

So it's not that there is anything "wrong" with CSS - it's simply an
issue of the activation energy required to switch. At least, that's how
I read the motivation here for an alternative. Having said that, CSS-BOY
may well be a perfect fit for other situations such as beamlines.

    - Claude

On 02/28/2012 09:30 AM, Hu, Yong wrote:
> Wow, what a hot topic! It's so great, so interesting, so exciting! BUT (sorry to say this word), my question is: is there anything wrong with CSS? what features are missing in CSS? What kind of applications CSS does not fit? Maybe there is nothing wrong with CSS, just personal flavors/tastes of different development environments. Maybe there is no one-size-fits-all solution. I just want to hear more and learn more about the motivations to create another GUI design toolkit.
>
> My personal experience is that CSS is a great tool: hassle-free installation, ease of use, powerful and flexible. Another good thing about CSS is that the developers (Kay Kasemir, Xihui, Kunal, Gabriele, etc.) are very kind and responsive when you need help. Why not take this great tool and great service for free?
>
> No perfect software. CSS is imperfect, too. I had been EDM user for a long time. I switched to CSS about 2 years ago and will never back to EDM. I was fascinated by its ease of use when I used CSS data browser to retrieve archived data and BOY to design screens for the first time. However, I did have quite a few frustration when I used CSS BOY to display large array data such as waveform and image: the CSS crashed several times in a week when I tested one digitizer; the CSS was extremely slow and became unresponsive when I used it to view 2MB @ 1Hz image data on 2-core with 2GB memory desktop. These things always make me doubtful of CSS stability and efficiency.
>
> EPICS is a free, open, and diverse community. Anyone or any site can create their own tools. I'm looking forward to seeing another potentially great OPI tool. Good luck to Cute!
>
> Yong
>
> NSLS-II Controls Group
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Andrew Johnson
> Sent: Tuesday, February 21, 2012 4:42 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
>


--
----------------------------------------------------------
  Claude Saunders<[email protected]>
  Software Services Group Leader
  Advanced Photon Source,   Argonne National Laboratory
  Argonne, IL  60439                   630 - 252 - 6619
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     And that must please you
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Replies:
RE: QT-based tools: Expressions of interest requested Elder Matias
References:
Re: QT-based tools: Expressions of interest requested Claude Saunders
RE: QT-based tools: Expressions of interest requested Elder Matias

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