Experimental Physics and
Industrial Control System

"Wang Xiaoqiang (PSI)" <[email protected]> · Tue, 27 Feb 2018 20:14:41 +0000

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