Re: OS X edm/medm openmotif woes

[Matt Newville <newville@cars.uchicago.edu>]

Hi Lewis,

On Tue, Nov 15, 2016 at 10:01 PM, J. Lewis Muir <jlmuir@imca-cat.org> wrote:

On 11/15, Matt Newville wrote:
> Hi Lewis,
>
> I highly recommend caQtDM.  It works great on Mac OS X.  Automated
> translations of MEDM files with adl2ui works with very few (sometimes
> controls that have been grouped together in MEDM need to be un-grouped for
> accurate translation). Once translated, modifying or building new displays
> with QtDesigner is very easy, and allows features that MEDM will never
> support.

Hi, Matt!

Thanks for the recommendation!  caQtDM looks quite interesting.

A concern for me is that I often want to include a GUI with EPICS-based
software I write.  To date, I've always included MEDM screens (i.e.,
.adl files).  I've noticed, however, that some modules include more than
one type of GUI.  For example, areaDetectors's ADCore has .adl, .edl,
and .opi files.  caQtDm's native GUI file format seems to be .ui files.
That makes four different GUI formats.  I'd hate to have to maintain
more than one GUI.

So, how do I provide a useful GUI and at the same time avoid maintaining
more than one?  You mention that adl2ui works well, but it sounds like
you would plan to convert MEDM screens once to .ui files, and then
continue in .ui files from there.  Is there a way to automatically
generate .adl, .edl, and .opi files from .ui files?  Or is there a
consensus forming around .ui files such that it would be reasonable to
just provide .ui files where I previously provided .adl files?

CaQtDM is an upgrade of MEDM (and I suppose EDM, though I have much less experience with EDM).  MEDM is no longer supported, and has always been a pain on Mac and Windows due to its dependency on X11, and even Linux due to its dependency on Motif.  On top of that, MEDM uses custom fonts that basically require editing X11 files -- no sane application has done this in the past twenty years.  Honestly, these problems with MEDM have been there forever, it's just that people are now used to working around it.   CaQtDM does not require libraries that it does not provide, and is actively maintained. 

I converted all the adl files I use to ui files once a couple years ago, though I have occasionally gone back to re-translate a few files or translate altered adl files.  I have a few ui files that use features (especially Tabs) not possible with MEDM.  At this point, adl files are legacy files, just as MEDM is a legacy application, well past its expiration date. 

--Matt