Re: FW: Next generation EPICS display manager

[Elliott Wolin <wolin@jlab.org>]

Hi,

We plan to look seriously at Labview for our EPICS GUI in the not too 
distant future, since I've heard that other labs have been using it 
successfully.  On Linux you need at least one development license, but 
the run-time engine is free.  The status of CA in Labview on Linux is 
somewhat in flux, but I hope the situation settles down fairly soon.  
Willem Blokland at ORNL (bl9@ornl.gov) may know the most about this.
				Sincerely,
					Elliott


================================================================================


Those raised in a morally relative or neutral environment will hold
		    no truths to be self-evident.
				   

Elliott Wolin
Staff Physicist, Jefferson Lab
12000 Jefferson Ave
Suite 8 MS 12A1
Newport News, VA 23606
757-269-7365

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tom.cobb@diamond.ac.uk wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> Here at Diamond we've just started looking around at the EPICS display
> managers out there, with a view to eventually replacing our EDM GUIs
> with something a little more modern. So far we have been playing with
> Qt, and have a prototype with a small widget set that controls a
> firewire camera and displays an mjpg stream. However, I am aware that
> there are several Qt EPICS implementations out there, and I think it
> would be good to collaborate with another site on this to avoid writing
> yet another display manager.
>
> Our findings so far:
> * We've found PyQt and CA too slow in large GUIs, but would still like
> to generate the PyQt bindings for any new widgets so we have the option
> for some specialised screens
> * We've found that the designer is a very handy editor, and it's very
> convenient to be able to use ui files rather than having to compile
> screens
> * Qt's signal/slot mechanism and QVariant classes are very powerful, but
> we've yet to find a neat way to fit PV Names and channels into this
>
> I should also point out that we haven't ruled out other display
> managers, we have briefly looked at Control System Studio SDS, but have
> found the widget set a little small, and widgets written by other sites
> seem to lack a common look and feel, but we would like to hear from
> other sites about their experiences in this area.
>
> So my questions are:
> * Has anyone else out there written a recent display manager?
> * How mature is it and how complete is the widget set?
> * How complicated / large are the screens you have built with it, and
> what's performance like?
> * Would you be willing to collaborate on it?
>
>
> Many thanks,
>  
> Tom Cobb,
> Diamond Light Source Ltd.
> Diamond House
> Harwell Science and Innovation Campus
> Didcot
> Oxfordshire
> OX11 0DE
> United Kingdom
> Tel +44 (0) 1235 778582
>
>