DESY, Hamburg, Germany
The control system for PETRA 3 [1] and its pre accelerators extensively use rich clients for the control room and the servers. Most of them are written with the help of a rich client Java framework: MstApp. They total to 106 different console and 158 individual server applications. MstApp takes care of many common control system application aspects beyond communication. MstApp provides a common look and feel: core menu items, a color scheme for standard states of hardware components and standardized screen sizes/locations. It interfaces our console application manager (CAM) and displays on demand our communication link diagnostics tools. MstApp supplies an accelerator context for each application; it handles printing, logging, resizing and unexpected application crashes. Due to our standardized deploy process MstApp applications know their individual developers and can even send them – on button press of the users - emails. Further a concept of different operation modes is implemented: view only, operating and expert use. Administration of the corresponding rights is done via web access of a database server. Initialization files on a web server are instantiated as JAVA objects with the help of the Java SE XMLEncoder. Data tables are read with the same mechanism. New MstApp applications can easily be created with in house wizards like the NewProjectWizard or the DeviceServerWizard. MstApp improves the operator experience, application developer productivity and delivered software quality.
[1] Reinhard Bacher, “Commissioning of the New Control System for the PETRA 3 Accelerator Complex at Desy”, Proceedings of ICALEPCS 2009, Kobe, Japan
