Scope

This document is a users manual of how to install, configure and use VisualDCT JCA debug plugin.

Audience

The audience of this document are all users of VisualDCT JCA debug plugin.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction

2. Requirements and Installation

3. Configuration

4. Running

5. Acknowledgements

References

Document History

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1. Introduction

JCA Debug Plugin is a Visual Database Configuration Tool (VisualDCT) plugin allowing to display actual values in the control system inside the control boxes for records displayed within VisualDCT. Macro substitution is also supported.
Value retrieval is achieved using Java Channel Access (JCA).

2. Requirements and Installation

Plugin requirements are:

• VisualDCT v2.4.1246 or newer (download)
• JCA 2.1.4 or newer (download)
• CAJ 1.0.1 or newer (download) (optional)
• JCA Debug Plugin classes (download)

After installing VisualDCT and JCA native libraries successfully you are ready to install VisualDCT JCA debug plugin. CAJ (pure java CA implementation) can be used also.
Note that for JCA installation the only requirement is that directory containing JCA native libraries is in system path (LD_LIBRARY_PATH environment variable for Unix systems and PATH environment variable for Win32 systems). VisualDCT JCA debug plugin comes with its own with JCA classes.

VisuaDCT has to be started with JCA debug plugin classes in the classpath. This can be easily achieved using the following command:

	On Unix : java -cp VisualDCT.jar:vdctJCADebugPlugin.jar:jca-2.1.5.jar com.cosylab.vdct.VisualDCT
	On Win32: java -cp VisualDCT.jar;vdctJCADebugPlugin.jar;jca-2.1.5.jar com.cosylab.vdct.VisualDCT
		

See VisualDCT User's Manual for detailed information about VisualDCT startup.

To install JCA debug plugin start VisualDCT and go to   Plugins   -   Plugin Manager...  , click   Install   and select vdctJCADebugPlugin.jar file. The file contains .vdctplugins.xml file which will autoconfigure plugin.
Click   Start   and plugin will start (by default Autostart option is selected to enable plugin autostart on VisualDCT startup).

Figure 1: Screenshot of Plugin Manager after successful installation.

An alternative way is to manually add plugin configuration to plugins configuration file (see Configuration).

3. Configuration

All plugin configuration is stored in plugins configuration file, located at $HOME/.vdctplugins.xml.

		 	
		  ...
		  	
		  <plugin class="com.cosylab.vdct.plugins.jcadebug.JCADebugPlugin" autostart="true">
		    <!-- param name="context" value="com.cosylab.epics.caj.CAJContext" /-->
		    <!-- param name="debug" value="true" /-->
		  </plugin>
			
		  ...
		  
		  
		

Plugin has context param XML entry which value points to the JCA2 context (implementation) to be used by plugin.
To enable debug info output uncomment debug param XML entry.

4. Running

Once you have opened a database you want to debug, go to   Debug   -   Start   -   JCA Debug Plugin  . This will switch to debug mode. The plug will scan all record names in opened database for macros. If any is found, a file chooser will popup allowing you to select a macro substitution file. If you do not want to use any, click   Cancel  , otherwise select appropriate macro substitution file (see Macro Substitution and Include Tool pages for more information about the macro substitution file syntax).
If you selected a macro substitution file, a window will macro table will appear allowing you to select wanted macro set. Click   Select   button to apply selected macro set or   Select none   to stop monitoring the values.   Stop debugging   button will return back to edit mode. Debugging can be also stopped by   Debug   -   Stop  , or by   CTRL - T   keyboard shortcut.

Figure 2: Macro set selector.

In debug mode all record are given an extra area where value of the VAL field is shown. Value is updated on every value change and the same color conventions are used as are used in MEDM. The timestamp is displayed as well to enable the developer to see when was the last time the record was processed.
By default only VAL fields are monitored, however user can monitor any other accessible fields. To enable (an eye icon) or disable (a crossed eye icon) this, use visibility flag of the fields. This can be done in navigator by clicking on the left-most column of the field row. Value of the field is also shown in the record area in yellow colour.

Figure 3: Debug session.

If during the monitoring timeout occurs (IOC goes down or JCA beacon is not received), this visually indicated by a clock sign over the record:

Figure 4: Timeout notification.

5. Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Swiss Light Source (SLS), especially Steve Hunt, for the ideas and for founding development of this plugin. Thanks to Diamond Light Source (DLS) for founding port to JCA2.

Document History

References