Useful Suggestions from Design Review
- Use EDM component visibility to implement pagination
- use python instead of a shell script to initiate the EDM generation
File management
The design (and design doc) needs to address file management completely.
- cvs the templates only
- it is suggested that the Templates go into cvs and be contained in a directory names $TOOLS/edm/templates/fbck
- for each display, let the generated file hang around until the next time the display needs to be generated (this is a good source for debugging and error tracking) - always keep the last generated copy of the display.
- when mulitple users try to generate the same display there is a race condition - what happens if two people generate a display at exactly the same time? You must try to create this condition to see what will happen. Look for a solution so that this race condition cannot occur. Possibly use file management.
Running EDM
We do not want a new instance of EDM to start up with every generated display. Look at EDM options (Ernest can help) , you want to use the current EDM instance with every generated display.
Documentation
An installation guide and a developers guide are needed - including links to python and cheetah resources, information about environment setup, etc.
Future Uses
There is great interest in the department in this technique for creating EDM displays. This project is a 'prototype'. When implementing, consider how other projects may use this technique and design it as a 'software tool'.
If this project is successful we may consider developing it further for the EPICS community