07/10/2007 VDCT Status Update EPICS Collaboration, October 2007 Knoxville, Tennessee

07/10/2007 This time last year... Idea was born to integrate VDCT into Control System Studio (Eclipse) –Many improvements planned to both usability and functionality, all within the Eclipse IDE –The vision: Create, develop, test, deploy and debug an entire EPICS application from a single integrated set of tools!

07/10/2007 What does this mean? How do we integrate: –Database design –Alarm handler configuration –Archiver configuration –Substitution file configuration –External interfaces –Debugging –Screen development etc, etc… There must be a better development tool than a text editor! However, we don’t want one big monolithic structure

07/10/2007 How do the tools work together? Must be able to share information and have a common idea of data structures. However, must be able to extend definitions to include information for a given tool. Must be language agnostic. Current problem is the db format is just limited to IOC server definitions, and isn’t extensible. Logical textual exchange data format is XML.

07/10/2007 Debugger Conceptual architecture Database Definition.db file.req file.grp file.subst file Schema(s).dbd file.xml file Visual Config. and viewing tool Spreadsheet Config. and viewing tool Display macros Archiver and Alarm config. … … “DBD core” Device definitions

07/10/2007 What about XML? One tool doesn’t have to understand parsing file or the data associated with the other tools. However XML must to be schema based so non-EPICS tools can be used and still generate valid files. We think we can use namespaces in the schema so that schemas defining different types of data can be defined independently. One of the schemas contains the dbd file information (and is generated from it). Basic structure is a template/record/field hierarchy, with meta-data from other tools able to be attached at each level. Would like to be compatible with JavaIOC definitions.

07/10/2007 What do you think? This is only a proposal How to the various “cores” work together: –IOC Core (Andrew) –RDB Core (Don) –CSS Core (Matthias) –Java IOC Core (Marty) –DBD Core These each need some interfaces and mutual understanding of data formats, but don’t want to be too tightly tied together. Need a “core” workshop?

07/10/2007 What about Visual DCT? Database configuration is only a small part of the whole Visual database configuration is only part of database configuration. However, project can include some other tools – spreadsheet mode, maybe a more functional way of designing databases. Live mode, and drag and drop of information is important. Needs a backwards compatible mode of understanding db and dbd files directly.

07/10/2007 Main aims for next release Sophisticated graphical view with improved wiring functionality New spreadsheet view Interaction with CSS plugins More support for property editing and validation Better printing support

07/10/2007 Progress Cosylab completed feasibility study and basic prototype for Eclipse integration. Concluded that EMF and GEF (Eclipse modelling and graphical frameworks) are suitable for this project and will reduce development time

07/10/2007 What next... Finish defining the XML schema structure. Propose feature list for new release to the EPICS community

07/10/2007 Thank you for listening! Please send any ideas or questions to: