RE: Control System Studio vs Phoebus

["Leblanc, Gregory via Tech-talk" <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>]

Kay, and also Kunal,  thanks so much those are really helpful, and have sent me down some most entertaining rabbit holes.  I did notice that the org.phoebus stuff isn’t on maven central, even through there were some screenshots in the presentation. 

      Greg

 

 

From: Kasemir, Kay <kasemirk at ornl.gov>
Sent: Saturday, October 9, 2021 12:31 PM
To: tech-talk at aps.anl.gov; Leblanc, Gregory <leblanc at ohio.edu>
Subject: Re: Control System Studio vs Phoebus

 

See presentations at most recent EPICS meeting, for example "CS-Studio and Phoebus Update"

https://indico.lightsource.ca/event/2/contributions/49/

https://indico.lightsource.ca/event/2/contributions/49/attachments/30/104/CS-Studio%20and%20Phoebus.pdf

 

Phoebus is the more recent version of CS-Studio, much more development activity, but in the presentation you see a list of some of the sites who still operate with the Eclipse-based code, and they also still work on bug fixes and minor enhancements.

 

The ORNL site, https://controlssoftware.sns.ornl.gov/css_phoebus/, provides two nightly builds, one from the common phoebus repo, another that adds our site-specific settings and additions. https://github.com/ControlSystemStudio/phoebus/tree/master/phoebus-product describes how to start a site-specific product, which usually begins with just a settings.ini file for your EPICS CA address list.

 

While it's hard to argue about taste, the prettiest screenshots are without question on https://controlssoftware.sns.ornl.gov.

As for best looking, if you check wikipedia for Phoebus, you'll find it's just another name for Apollo, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo, who has been considered good looking for millennia.

 

As to what you should use, that decision is ultimately for you to make. EDM, the older Eclipse-based CS-Studio, the newer Phoebus-based CS-Studio, MEDM, PyQtDM, .. are all free and open source, you're welcome to use them, but nobody can make any guarantees. Several of these offer ways for a limited 'import' of displays created with one of the other tools, like https://control-system-studio.readthedocs.io/en/latest/app/display/convert-medm/doc/index.html . Of course you'll always find some property of some widget in some display that won't convert exactly the way you had in mind, so picking the display tool for your site is a big decision.

For the display builder which started as 'BOY' in Eclipse, then Display Builder in Eclipse, now in Phoebus, and also to some extend available as a web runtime, https://github.com/ControlSystemStudio/phoebus/wiki/Display-Builder-Compatibility spells out some of details for longer term compatibility. Or you pick tool X now and decide to just go with that for the next 15 years, running on an isolated subnet, not worrying about OS updates etc.

 

-Kay

 

 

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From: Tech-talk <tech-talk-bounces at aps.anl.gov> on behalf of Leblanc, Gregory via Tech-talk <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Sent: Saturday, October 9, 2021 11:25 AM
To: tech-talk at aps.anl.gov <tech-talk at aps.anl.gov>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Control System Studio vs Phoebus

 

Hi folks,

 

I’m trying to grasp the relationship between CSS and Phoebus.  The github readme for CSS says: “…A newer development provides most of the key CS-Studio components without any Eclipse dependencies, see https://github.com/shroffk/phoebus ...“ though that link actually redirects to https://github.com/ControlSystemStudio/phoebus.  The github page for phoebus says “Phoebus is an update of the Control System Studio toolset that removes dependencies on Eclipse RCP and SWT.”  https://controlsystemstudio.org/ implies that both CSS and Phoebus are under active development, and that no particular preference should be given to one or the other.  Then there is also: https://controlssoftware.sns.ornl.gov/css_phoebus/ which states that Phoebus is the current thing that everybody should be using.  The ORNL site provides nightly builds, but I’m not clear if these are built directly from the phoebus repo on github, or if they also contain local patches.

 

The prettiest screenshot that I’ve seen so far is: https://controlsystemstudio.org/static/a50062832647463f341fcb22d413a1cb/565e9/01-main_System-Overview_v02.webp but I haven’t found a large gallery that I could browse through.

 

Is development active on both CSS and Phoebus?

Should I prefer one over another for long term support?  For new features?  For the best-looking HMIs?

     Greg

 

--

Gregory Leblanc

Accelerator Engineer

Edwards Accelerator Lab - Ohio University

123 University Terrace

Athens, OH 45701 USA

leblanc at ohio.edu

M: (401) 52-OUAL1 or (401) 526-8251