Release Notes for P01-07-00 (last updated 09/02/2003):

The previous release notes is located here.

Installation:

• Upgrading from LATTE 1.6 or earlier to LATTE 1.7:
  • As usual prior to installation the old LATTE directories should be renamed to Online_Pxx-xx-xx and VxWorks_Pxx-xx-xx where xx-xx-xx is the previous release number. This allows the user to go back to an earlier release if there is a problem with the latest release.
  • After installation runControl.cfg file needs to be carried over to the new installation. If you have created a runControl.cfg in the RunControl directory, this needs to be copied to the new Online\RunControl directory. If runControl.cfg exists in another directory and you are using the "runcontrolmain -c" option to specify your configuration file location, then no need to move the file.
  • There is a syntax change between 1.7 and earlier releases regarding the user list in the configuration file. If you look at the runControl.cfg.sample file in RunControl directory, you'll see that under the [users] section, the id is now before the equal sign, this change was required to support full names with spaces in them. Pleas modify your own configuration files accordingly.
  • Also RunControl\runId.cfg file from earlier releases needs to be copied over to the new installation directory. The machine ids needs to be updated to ensure uniqueness. runId.cfg.sample file contains comments indicating machine id assignments for each subsystem. This scheme allows for 100 teststands per subsystem and 999999 runs per teststand.
• Added PyXML, Pyana and Spread to the installation.

VxWorks Related:

• This release contains the Cairo release of Flight Software interface libraries which are documented here.

• VxWorks directory now contains a "Release.txt" file that indicates what LATTE release it belongs to.
• The old GTEM libraries libgtem_tkrV5.o and libgtem_nrl.o are no longer needed.
  There are now two variations of the library with the following descriptions:
  • libgtem.o: GLAST/LAT TEM Interface. GTRC version >= 5. GCRC version >= 5
  • libgtem_CALv4.o: GLAST/LAT TEM Interface. GTRC version >= 5. GCRC version <= 4

Qt and PyQt Related:

• This release requires and uses Qt 3.2.0 and PyQt 3.8. All the required libraries can be found in the DLLs directory.
• pyuic.exe is also provided in the same directory and should be used to generate python code from the .ui files. The best way of doing this is to run setupRunControlMain.bat before running pyuic. This way an older version of pyuic won't be used by mistake.
• If you are doing any GUI development using the Qt Designer, you need to download and compile Qt 3.2.0 on your systems.

Documentation:

• Added documentation for NFS server setup here.
• Added RunControl classes to Doxygen.

Hippodraw:

• This LATTE release contains HippoDraw version 1.2.0.

Functional blocks and registers:

• Fixed a problem where the timestamp was not returning -1 if the register has not been accessed yet.
• Values are cached in bypass mode as well now.
• Added GEGU_poly3 class from CAL to predefined EGUs.
• Defined constants for read write and deprecated flags.
• Added support for read-write flags.
• Added configComments, configName and configVersion to support CAL.

Environmental Monitoring Display:

• Set range dialog box centers properly now.
• Resolving the location of envMonSchema.xml based on ONLINE_ROOT now.
• Added ACD to the monitored components list.
• Using native Hippodraw CircularBuffer for the plots.

RunControl:

• Added the ability to call the browser from RunControl
• TEM power up: Create the schema on the fly. Removes dependency on an existing schema file.
• Added support for the Python shell panel by exposing the DBN database dictionary to the system.
• Added the run conditions and python shell panels.
• Added register browser GUI launching button. If a schema is already loaded the browser uses that schema otherwise it lets the user load one.
• Using an instance of the QFileDialog instead of the static method getOpenFileName which wasn't centering the dialog properly after the first time.
• runControlMain_local.bat and runControlMain.bat are now using the %ONLINE_ROOT% env variable for paths.
• If RunControl is being shutdown in the middle of a run, then don't create the run report.
• Pthon shell output delegation: Basically if a script is running all output should go to the command console and not the Python shell panel. Same is true if the panel is hidden.
• The users section in the runcontrol.cfg file has been reorganized to be able to support the full name.
• Fixed a problem where the current directory was not being restored back if there was a problem loading the application script.
• FITSwriter: Added support for flushing the buffer every time the interval is reached. Set the flush interval for FITS output to 100 events.
• Added comment panel.
• Added clipboard copy/paste support to the comment and python shell panels. In order to copy just highlight the text with the mouse. To paste, click on the right mouse button.
• Added site, instrument type and phase run condition parameters to the preferences.
• Added bad event count to the status panel and run report. If FITS output is enabled, the events with errors get written to a raw file as well as the FITS file.
  Added site, phase, instrument type, particle type and orientation
  to the run report.
• Moved particle type and orientation from the separate dock window to just above the application selection in the GUI.
• Commented out the setting of the biasdac in TEMPowerUp.py.
• Added test report generation class
• Provided feedback to the user about the comment entry being disabled or enabled.
• Added the ability to record bad events in a file.
• Disabled the run conditions during run.
• Test report class: Fixed the problem where "Link" tag was appearing outside the "Item" tag.
• Added the ability to reload all modules that were loaded after the application loads so that if the script writer makes a change in one of the modules the change will take effect without exiting RunControl.
• Set the filename for the application to the previously selected item by default.
• Added support for relative filenames in application paths.
• Default the schema filename to the previously selected file.
• Added housekeeping.
• Reorganized preferences with a tab container.
• Made Hippodraw canvas available as part of the database node (DBN).
• applyConfig is now run only in setup(). Then the script can execute applyConfig during the execution as many times as necessary.
• Added environment variable expansion to the PYTHONPATH under preferences. The operator can use a syntax like $ONLINE_ROOT\work\MyScripts to add to the pythonpath.
• Fixed a problem where runId.cfg was created in directories other than the RunControl directory.
• Added the ability to specify the debug output level. Type "runControlMain -h" for more information.
• Added reportStyle.xsl.sample, a sample test report XSLT stylesheet template. Typically, users need to copy this file to their reports directory.
• Added an "About" box which reports the LATTE release number as well as Hippo, Qt and PyQt versions.
• RunControl batch files can now be run from a directory other than Online\RunControl.
• RunControl aborts with an error now if it can not find a runControl.cfg file. If you get this error message when you start RunControl, copy the runControl.cfg.sample as runControl.cfg to the current directory.
• Added Spread server name entry under the System tab.
• rcHouseKeeping: Implemented addEnvRegs in addition to setEnvRegs.
• rcHouseKeeping: Register labels are prepended with the node name and id tuple.
• rcHouseKeeping: In case the script does not set the registers default to monitoring a predefined set.
• rcArchiver, rcFitsWriter: Added static method to generate filename from timestamp
• rcHouseKeeping: Added the option to return the full path in getFileName.
• rcHouseKeeping: Added getRegLabel, getEnvNames, getCachedValue methods.
• rcHouseKeeping: Allowed the thread to take at least one measurement before returning.

Command Client:

• Fixed gTWRread()
• Added isConnected method.
• Added getEnvQuantities to support housekeeping.
• Added read write flags to Gattr.
• Added getName method to Gattr.
• Added isReadOnly, isWriteOnly, isReadWrite, isNoDirectAccess methods.
• Added getRegisterNo method.
• Added more descriptive error and warning messages.

Command Server:

• Added length to the outgoing packet.
• Check if the incoming packet length matches the expected length.
• Added millisecond precision to the timestamp for local mode.
• Fixed byte ordering problem in sending the timestamp.

Event Server:

• EvtSvr has been modified to read the PPC timebase registers (64 bits) and store their value after the 64 bit VxWorks wall clock timestamp in the GEM contribution to the event data. To make the GEM contribution again an integer number of LATp cells in size, two additional longwords of padding were added to it. The timebase register increments at an implementation dependent rate, which for the MVME2306 SBCs currently used in the test stands is 16 MHz (60 nS tick).

  To access the timebase value from a LATTE script, use the evGetTimebase() method of an EvtCli class instance after determining that the event is parsable (check the status). The EBF package has also been updated to handle the new timebase value. See the release notes in that package for how to access it.

  We observe that the minimum event spacing is about 200 µS, presumably occurring when several events are stacked up in the various buffers of the TEM and LAT COMM card, thus causing the readout software to work at the maximum rate.

Event Client:

• Introduced parser_status along with the gglt_status.
• Tried to trap and report unhandled exceptions/parse errors.

EBF:

• EBF version 3.1.4 is include with this release. See release notes "EBFrelease.txt" in EBF directory.

Testsuite:

• Added test_hsk.py script for testing the housekeeping class.
• Added test_snapshot.py script for takeSnapshot method.

Schema and Configuration:

• Converted prints to logs in gSchemaConfig. Commented out deprecated/old code.
• Added GAEQ to the schema for use in EnvMon.
• Fixed directory access problem with readSchema, it also restores directory back to its original value if there is an XML exception.
• When configuration is applied make sure the values are treated as raw.
• Implemented takeSnapshot method, modified writeSchema to support it.
• Added AFEE temperature EGUs to envMonSchema.xml.

Other:

• Added experimental data distribution server classes which make use of Spread.
• Added single event display in the GOSED directory:
  • GOSED can be run with "python gosedImpl.py" from the GOSED directory.
  • It curently plots only TKR and CAL data and can currently read files only of the .arch type.
  • Use RunControl/fits2arch to convert FITS files to arch files.
  • GOSED can also plot live events using the SPREAD server, but performance is currently poor. To do this, configure and run the SPREAD server on another computer than the one RunControl is running on. Tell RunControl where the SPREAD server is using the preferences dialog. Run GOSED on the same computer as the SPREAD server or a third computer. Tell GOSED where the SPREAD server is using the Tools->Server Preferences... dialog. Then tell GOSED to plot live events by clicking on the Open Server button (the little computer icon next to the open folder icon).
• Implemented logStack and logException methods in gUtil.
• Electronic Logbook distribution has been added to this release and can be found in the eLog directory.

Version Information:

(Retrieved by running versions.bat while in /Online directory)
The modules ending with _FW denote COMM board firmware and the modules ending with _HW denote COMM board hardware revisions.

Module	Version
EBF	3.1.4
GAEM	2.1.1.1
GAEM_FW	3.1
GAEM_HW	1.1
GGLT	1.3.6.0
GGLT_FW	AEM: 3.1, TEM: 2.2
GGLT_HW	1.1
GNAT	1.0.21.0
GTEM	libgtem.o1.3.3.0 libgtem_CALv4.o 1.3.3.1
GTEM_FW	2.2
GTEM_HW	1.1
PyQt	3.8
Python	0x20202f0
Qt	3.2.0
XBRD	0.0.3.0
XBRD_FW	1.2
XBRD_HW	1.1
cmdCli	1.37
cmdSvr	1.51
evtCli	1.57
evtSvr	1.54
gAttr	1.22
gConstraint	1.6
gEGU	1.6
gGroup	1.3
gLAT	1.29
gNode	1.23
gRule	1.3
gSchemaConfig	1.26
gutil	1.16
logging	0.4.7
sihippo	1.2.0
versions	1.26
xml	0.8.3
Component	Version
TEM
GCRC
GTRC
AEM
GARC
GAFE

Please contact Selim Tuvi at stuvi@slac.stanford.edu,Ric Claus at claus@slac.stanford.edu or Jim Panetta panetta@slac.stanford.edu if you have problems or any questions.
 

Back