7.5. Remote control package
When doing event building, it can be useful to have a ReadoutGUI for each data source and then another ReadoutGUI that controls them all. Doing this allows data sources to be worked on independently when it is not necessary to run all of them together to build events. The remote control packages for the ReadoutGUI support this mode of operation.
If you choose to use this approach you must enable the ReadoutGUIs that will be slaved to the master control panel to:
Run a remote control server component that allows the master GUI to tell it what to do.
Run a remote console monitor component that allows the master GUI to relay output that goes to the slave output window to the master's output window.
This is done by adding the following two lines to the slave GUI's ReadoutCallouts.tcl file:
package require ReadoutGuiRemoteControlRemoteControlClient::initialize ?control-service output-service?
- The remote control software is an optional component. This line incorporates that component into the ReadoutGUI
- An instance of the ReadoutGUIRemoteControl class and OutputClient are instantiated, thus providing the required capabilities for run control and output forwarding. Furthermore, the end proc is renamed to local_end and a new end proc is created that will propagate an end run request to the master ReadoutGUI. This forwarding of the end run may be important if the enslaved GUI runs a filter in conjunction with the Actions package.
The remote control software advertises two services with the NSCL port manager. the first, by default named ReadoutGUIRemoteControlService is used by the master (the system controlling the GUI) to send commands to the slave (the system that specifies it can be controlled). The second, by default named ReadoutGUIOutput is used to echo output from the slave to the master.
More than one slave can be started per user in the same system by explicitly specifying the names of these two services to the RemoteControlClient::initialize command. In the master, when setting up the remote controlled data source, just override the default values for these service names.
For example:
Specifies the remote control service wil be advertized as control and the output relay service advertised as output.
To use a slave UI, you must run a readout shell and add data sources with the RemoteGUI data source provider for each slave you want your master to control. You will need to know which system is running the slave GUI and under which user name it is running. Furthermore, the system to be enslaved must have already been started (i.e. state = HALTED) in order for the master ReadoutGUI to enslave it.
While a slave can only be controlled by a single master, as of NSCLDAQ-12.0, several slaves can be controlled by a master and several slaves can be run by thesame user in a single node by specifying the adverised service names as described in the text above.