Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"Chen, Xihui" <[email protected]> · Tue, 28 Feb 2012 15:55:34 -0500

Hi,

Thanks Yong for bringing CSS BOY into this discussion! I would like to take this opportunity to spread few words about BOY so people can have a new impression on BOY before making their decisions. 

There have been lots of big updates on BOY in last year.  One of the biggest updates is that now you can view BOY OPI in Web Browser including mobile device without making any change to existing OPIs. For all updates, see
http://cs-studio.hg.sourceforge.net/hgweb/cs-studio/cs-studio-3.1/raw-file/2425b94329bd/applications/plugins/org.csstudio.opibuilder/html/ChangeLog.html 

Regarding the performance issue, I have made a performance test report for reference:
https://sourceforge.net/apps/trac/cs-studio/wiki/BOYTest

As always, I'm very happy to listen to your comment (including negative ones), suggestions and requirements so we can improve BOY together.

Xihui

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Hu, Yong [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Tuesday, February 28, 2012 10:30 AM
> To: 'Andrew Johnson'; EPICS tech-talk
> Subject: RE: QT-based tools: Expressions of interest requested
> 
> 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:tech-talk-
> [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
> 

Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System

Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System