Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"Wang Xiaoqiang (PSI)" <[email protected]> · Thu, 1 Mar 2018 20:14:21 +0000

After reflecting on the discussions in this thread, I want to offer my 2 cents worth.

The MEDM alternatives (edm, css, caqtdm, etc.) are providing conversion tools, which is good on one hand. But that 
will lock the users to its format complex in the future, intentionally or not. As Seven Hartman pointed, new display manager 
happens every ~10 years. Each iteration/alternative will create a more complexed format, and I wish the future developers
good luck to convert the .opi, .ui files.

As I observe, the alternatives fall into two categories:
  a. display manager, edm, caqtdm. You design with what the display manager provides, or extend the C++.
  b. library/framework, epicsqt.  You program everything.
And now Qml/QtQuick let you combine design and programming in one. It is static by default, and becomes dynamic when
javascript is used. CSS is on this direction but limited by the choice of language, and the scripting feels like 2nd class citizen.

A little background on Qml/QtQuick: it is Qt’s direction in mobile and embedded development, which is especially 
profitable in in-vehicle business right now. Since then QtWidget module is declared in maintenance, with no new features planned.
This arouse developers’ concern about QtWidgets’ future.

Looking forward and the Qt developers could collaborate and evenly get united by consolidating to the same epics data representation.
And the representations are then having a solid ground to be shared.

> On 27 Feb 2018, at 21:14, Wang Xiaoqiang (PSI) <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> 
> May I contribute one more to this list.
> http://epics.web.psi.ch/software/CSDataQuick/
> 
> PS: I agree with your conclusion “MEDM is still the winner”. 
>    So CSDataQuick includes a direct rendering of old .adl files
>    without explicit conversion.
> 
>> On 27 Feb 2018, at 18:53, Whitney R. Armstrong <[email protected]> wrote:
>> 
>> Hello,
>> 
>> My recent experience with display managers left me with the conclusion that a new DM is desperately needed. Here is a quick recap of my experiences and thoughts dealing with the different display managers.
>> Note I am using the latest Ubuntu and Epics base-7 and my comments are tongue-in-cheek.
>> 
>> 1. MEDM : It works! This old gem works (almost) perfectly. It has a very easy to use interface, but of course, is rather limited.
>> 
>> 2. edm : Where do I download it? The webpage is broken. (Last documentation update was in 2007: is also not a good sign.) 
>> 3. caQtDM: A home rolled build system is never a good sign. It compiles but then crashes when launched. I get a horrible hand cramp trying to debug things because who types "caQtDM" with ease? Does it work... I don't know... maybe?
>> 
>> 4. CS-studios: First I follow the instructions on the website: fails.  Eclipse cannot install all the needed parts. Next I try running maven to build from the core directory. After maven downloads the entire internet the build fails with some horrible java errors. (Why is java still a
>> thing?)  CSS looks nice from all the pictures but it has some bugs (or undocumented features).
>> 
>> Anyway, if I missed any DMs please let me know. As you can tell,  IMO MEDM is still the winner.
>> 
>> The idea for a new display manager is to use an "immediate mode" gui (imgui) design  which is much easier than "retain mode" like qt, gtk, etc. I have been playing around with Dear ImGui (https://github.com/ocornut/imgui) which has become quite popular. A test using ImGui and looks for PVs from the example ioc app can be found here https://github.com/whit2333/imgui_DM .
>> 
>> My initial take away: It was easier to develop my own DM than build most of the existing display mangers. I am not sure if this speaks to the awesomeness of Dear ImGui, or the sad state of existing DMs (but not you MEDM, you are my rock).
>> 
>> In summary, I would like to develop a new display manager around Dear ImGui and any feedback or comments on the idea would be great.
>> 
>> Cheers,
>> Whit
>> 
>> PS This repo was super useful (https://github.com/mdavidsaver/cmake4epics) and cmake could make life easier by replacing many parts of the -- let's say, unique -- "Epics build system".
>> 
>> 
>> 
> 

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System