Re: Idea for new Display Manager

[Pete Jemian <jemian@anl.gov>]

Now I'm confused.

On 3/1/2018 10:46 AM, larsson@triumf.ca wrote:
> All the displays managers for Epics *look* far behind what is available
> from commercial systems, say Schneider or Rockwell.  Which are themselves
> far behind what programmers are doing today with, a modern operating
> system or video games (also control interfaces).  And that's what we're
> talking about right, at least in part, how it looks, or how we display
> data?  Otherwise we could just use camonitor on a terminal with caput.
>
> I think the key to having a decent display manager, one that adapts to new
> technologies, better/different formats (say HTML5/PHP, Qt, text a la Lynx,
> or some fancy Virtual Reality / VTK / QT3d initiative) is to have Epics
> easily push/pull from a database (say MySQL, PostgreSQL).  Once that is
> done one could use any language, any system, to control and display data
> as long as said language or method can access a typical database.
>
> As a side benefit to using a properly setup database one would
> automatically get an archive, and the benefits of database
> synchronization/backup, and seamless data compression.
>
> (Also if someone is excited and jumping in to do this my vote is for
> submitting it the Package Management Debian/Ubuntu repository.  I'm a
> control systems engineer, and want to spend my time controlling systems,
> not compiling very particular versions of modules, libraries, plugins, and
> endless environment variables just to begin my work.)
>
> My two cents & cheers!
>
> James Richard Larsson
What is the value in adding an additional intermediate component, such 
as a SQL database server, to solve the inadequacies of the various 
existing display managers?  That's a new piece of work for this 
discussion.  Each IOC already provides the data servers with a common 
protocol.  One can already use any language, any system, to control and 
display data as long as said language or method can access an EPICS IOC.
Pete


--
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Pete R. Jemian, Ph.D.                 <jemian@anl.gov>
Beam line Controls and Data Acquisition (BC, aka BCDA)
Advanced Photon Source,    Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne, IL  60439                    630 - 252 - 3189
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