Originaly developed at Argonne National Laboratory(ANL) USA.

Contents

• MEDM help. 
• Replace option for RelatedDisplay element. Made by Fred Vong from ANL. 
• Save edited and nonsaved displays when MEDM crashes. 
• Associated menu for Composite element. 
• Check for identical display. 
• Reading archive data into StripChart element. 
• X Window resource file Medm.ad. 
• Fixed bugs in version 2.4.3 from 2.3.0 which was one from what we started.
• Fixed bugs in version 2.4.4 from 2.4.3.

MEDM help

     This is implemented to be used with Motif Window Manager (MWM). MWM default window menu for each Medm's display now has a new button: Medm_Help.
If a user activates it, then Medm will read system environment MEDM_HELP. If that is defined and isn't empty string, then Medm will make system call of script defined in MEDM_HELP with parameter that is Medm's display title.
For example, if we call

   setenv MEDM_HELP /my_path/my_script
   medm -local My_Display.adl

then Medm_help will make a system call

   /my_path/my_script My_Display.adl

We use this to call Netscape to show help information and use Message Box to send operators' messages as for particular Medm's display. If netscape's window exists on the same X display of the medm, then that script forces the netscape to open interesting URL, if not ,then open new one with specified URL. You can see the script. 

Replace option for RelatedDisplay element

This feature was implemented by Frederick Vong from Argonne National Laboratory.

The ReletedDisplay dialog window. 

    Now related display can be invoked with replace mode. In that case current display will be removed and new related one will be opened.
    Default mode is none replace. 

Save edited and nonsaved displays when MEDM crashes

    Medm will try to save nonsaved displays on disc in case of crash. Files will be placed in /tmp directory. Medm will write appropriate information in term window(stderr). 

Associated menu for Composite element

    The idea behind of this feature is very simple. We want to have possibility to appropriate a list of actions to particular Composite display element. As Composite element can cover one or more elements so any element or group of element can have its own action list associated with particular Composite display element. This way we will have possibility to open new displays related to particular display element and to call system scripts directly from the group of element, rather than to create RelatedDisplay or ShellCommand element near the group.
    By now the actions can be just one of tree predefined types, in future a list of that will grow.
    If we have some group of element related to a part of controlled system which should be processed somehow by external programs or by MEDM's internal actions, in this case a list of the processing actions can be assign on the group. Sometimes it is necessary to save interesting value of channel in database or invoke script, which has to switch off alarming and so on. In execute mode Associated menu with a list of available actions can be popped up on Composite element. In case when Composite element would have Valuator or CartesianPlot elements inside than the associated menu will have an additional item to pop up a service dialog windows for those types of elements.
    One disadvantage still exists. After a number of element were grouped it is not possible to select on display a children element of Composite element. To improve this ListTree widget will be added in Resource Palette to provide possibility to show and select elements from a list of element.

How to use it:

• Make a Composite element by grouping elements together.
• Call Resource Palette dialog.
• Call Associated Menu dialog from previous one.
• Fill in "Label", "Command", and "Arguments" text fields and make a choice of action. Now just three action types are available from associated menu: open New Display, open New Display Replace mode, call System Script. For New Display and New Display Replace for command prompt a name of adl file should be specified.
  After creating items press Apply on Associated Menu dialog to assign created menu to the Composite element.
• In execute mode, when cursor would be in rectangle of Composite element, which has an Associated Menu it changes its face to inform about Associated Menu feature availability there.
• Press Button3 to see menu and make Your choice.

The Resource Palette dialog window. 

The Associated Menu dialog window. 

The Item's pulldown menu. 

When Medm is in Execute mode: Associated Menu poped up on the composite element. 

How does format of Composite element data look likes?

        ...
        composite {
                object {
                        x=133
                        y=644
                        width=106
                        height=41
                }
                "composite name"=""
                vis="static"
                chan=""

                menuItem {
                        label="Show panel 1"
                        type="New Display"
                        command="Panel.adl"
                        args="ABC=panel_1"
                }
                menuItem {
                        label="Show panel 2"
                        type="New Display Replace"
                        command="Panel.adl"
                        args="ABC=panel_2"
                }
                menuItem {
                        label="Get help"
                        type="System script"
                        command="netscape"
                        args="-ncols 128 http://www-kryo.desy.de"
                }

                children {
                ...

Check for identical display.

    If user would try to open display which has version number, adl file name and macro substitution table the same as some one of already created display has, than: in Edit mode warning dialog will be popped up, in Execute mode identical one will be poped up on screen. 

Reading archive data into StripChart element.

    Let us see values' history on StripChart plot.

The Strip Chart Data dialog window. 

    If Util channel is specified for StripChart than in Execute mode Medm will try to get a data from Archive Epics's record and to present it on the StripChart element. That will happen every time when user in Execute mode would resize SctripChart.

Again adl format was changed..

        ...
        "strip chart" {
                object {
                        x=45
                        y=51
                        width=299
                        height=272
                }
                plotcom {
                        clr=14
                        bclr=4
                }
                pen[0] {
                        chan="VME01:cpuMonitor_sub"

                        utilChan="VME01:cpuMonitor_sub_h"

                        clr=61
                }
                ...

X Window resource file Medm.ad

    Medm's X resource file Medm.ad is made as public for that users who want to customize it themselves. 

Fixed bugs in version 2.4.3

• Crashes when a Composite element would have child elements with X-Window widget inside.
• Crashes when button3 is pressed in Execute mode on a CartesianPlot element.
• In Edit mode the resizing runs without rubberbanding.
• A number of minor changes to improve performance were made.
• A RelateDisplay element with more than 6 items crashed on Solaris 2.x.
• In version with color rules some elements do not change colors.
• Drag and drop did not work for a number of element types.
• Arc and Oval elements were drew lines when the sizes of them were too small.
• In Edit mode RelatedDisplay and ShellCommand elements were created with influence of resources existed in the moment in global resource bundle.

Fixed bugs in version 2.4.4

• Monitor element does not properly process label attribute when reads display from a file.
• Arc and Rectangle are painted in wrong color when elements have not channel name attribute defined.
• Polygon and Polyline are not able to edit they attributes in Edit mode.
• Rectangle element crashes in Edit mode if a color mode defined as alarm.
• Image element crashes for some sizes of pictures.
• Composite element does not copy Associated Menu data in Edit mode via Copy&Paste commands.
• In Edit mode elements do not put down in a elemelt list by Lower command.