JCOP FWWG 19 September: Trending 2.0

Tuesday 19 Sept 2017, 14:00 → 15:00 Europe/Zurich

160/R-009 (CERN)

JCOP Framework Working Group Meeting,
19 September 2017,
Trending

Participants: Jonas Arroyo (BE-ICS), Petra Mazdin(BE-ICS), Valeri Falaleev(NA62), Stefan Schlenker(ATLAS), Clara Gaspar(LHCb), Mateusz Lechman(ALICE), Frank Glege(CMS), Fernando Varela-Rodriguez(BE-ICS)

News

• New "Oracle Instant Client 12.1.0.2 x64"  package is now available via CMF, resolving the issue with memory leak (ENS-19379). Recommended to test before applying to production system. Verified by BE-ICS to resolve the issue in test systems
• Patch P005 aggravates the problem with ChildPanelReturnValue() whereby the return values are transmitted by dpSet to internal _UI datapoints (issue ETM-1437). The functionality was deprecated since WinCC OA 3.15 release, yet we were reestablishing it with a CERN patch (custom panel.ctl lib). This is now not working anymore, and the panels work in a wrong way if they contain the dpSet. Out of JCOP Fw panels, the fwOkCancel.pnl (from fwGeneral) is affected; will be fixed for the next release of fwCore.
  Apparently this may pose a problem for LHCb which also seems to use this method in some circumstances such as nested panels, where this used to be the only way to get the results back. Clara to review and report back if it is an issue for LHCb.

lbTrending: the LHCb's trending tool

Clara presented the tool which was developed by LHCb on top of fwTrending (mainly extending it with new features such as the tree, plots and pages)

• an easy to use dpSelector, allowing to select DPElements of a datapoint, and then choose instances.
• The Trending Editor&Navigator extended to contain this selector, and also display the trending page configuration in the same panel, allowing to select into which plot the trends will be added
• massive configuration tool: could select folder, then DPElements of a device, and a list of instances (datapoints) and the create pages of plots with either a device per page or element per page
• trending pages have a functionality of linking the time-axis of all the plots (changing one synchronizes all others); enabled by a button
• If one opens a view from a folder, then the page-display have additional PREV/NEXT buttons to navigate to other pages in this folder
• A tool to bulk-change the plot (curve) legends, with smart string-replacement mechanism
• Bulk-configuration of plots: a completely new configuration panel, more streamlined, acting on many plots at once
• The dpSelector allows to mass configure archiving on selected dpes, or review the current configuration
  • Similar functionality for alarms
  • powerful filtering allows to sub-select out of the list selected in the dpSelector
• Pages created bu subdetectors could be used by other nodes in the tree; support for distributed systems
• Removing a curve from all plots is not implemented, because it is easier to drop and recreate the plots with this tool

Preview of new features of the WinCC OA trending widget

Petra presented the list of new features of the trending widget implemented in patch P005; apparently it seems to be a not yet completed part of the "Trending 2.0", which should come in the 3.15 "Feature Patch" this autumn. See the presentation of Petra attached in INDICO for the complete list.

The presentation as well as a component with demo panels of ETM (repackaged as a component) are attached to the minutes in INDICO. 

Some of the features are trivial, some not completed, others potentially very interesting.

Discussion

• General
  • limiting the time-range of the plot allows to prevent long-executing queries
  • CSS reloading: does it really need a project (!) restart? 
    Comment from Piotr: GEDI has a menu option to do this, hence probably achievable even at runtime.
• ATLAS
  • the possibility to limit certain interactions could be interesting
  • performance improvements for plot markers as requested by ATLAS are welcome; they need to be tested
  • in general, initially one should concentrate on making sure that all already existing features are working smoothly and with good performance, before embarking on new features
  • Still, they would certainly have many use cases for the new features
  • The following would be the most important issues to be solved for ATLAS in a short term
    • Functionality of the plot configuration panel (the Save button, instead of Save As, etc), FWTREND-1441
    • Transparent colours to allow more smooth embedding of plots in custom panels (FWTREND-916)
    • Problems with auto-scaling and linked-curves (ENS-14569, ENS-14740)
    • Proper treatment of NaN/Inf values (ETM-1495)
• LHCb
  • either expose the necessary hooks for lbTrending, or ... adopt/reimplement the functionality of it into fwTrending
    • general agreement that many of the features should be accepted, such as paging,
    • to be determined how much effort it would be to get the features ported to fwTrending and when this could be achieved; decision to be taken soon
    • Clara has a "stacked bar graph" widget implemented on her own;
      we have seen a similar functionality delivered as a part of the new "Graph" widget for Trending-2.0 preview; to be looked at
• CMS
  • no major issues so far
  • Frank to check with subdetectors if they had any pending important requests
• ALICE
  • a list of request already passed to BE-ICS; no major ones
  • it would be important to remove the dependency on unDistributed and related mis-behaviours
  • The use case of a bar-graph with many curves (like a old CRT "scope" with many "traces" that are seen); so far this was implemented by stacking many bargraph widgets with transparent background. It should now be possible to have many curves in the bar graph
• NA62
  • a general note that the trending configuration should be easy to use for non-WinCC OA users; ie. trending should show devices (LOGICAL view, or FSM) and not only the datapoint tree
• Others
  • Fernando inquired about the use of web-based HTML5/JavaScript widgets instead of the trending plot, and embedding them using thw WebView EWO. Technicaly possible, and in fact used also by ETM to embed some specialized plots (yet not trending). It was expressed that proper integration with WinCC OA (properties/events of the widget) would need to be carefully integrated, and that support/maintenance/extenstions of HTML/JavaScipt code would require additional skills. 
    With extra manpower, one might reconsider this during the Frameworks Consolidation

Any Other Business

• Clara points out that dpGetAsync() is not working in fwRDBAPI (ie queryFunction). Piotr acknowledges that it is likely still not implemented as it was thought to be unnecessary.
  Apparently, fwTrending makes use of it for data export (ENS-18668).
  Clara has a workaround for LHCb users by using dpGetPeriod(); should be followed up

Next meeting

• 3 October, 14H00, on the topic of the "NextGen Archiver".

14:00 → 14:05 General news

Speakers: Fernando Varela Rodriguez (CERN), Piotr Golonka (CERN)

14:05 → 14:15 LHCb Trending Tool

Speaker: Clara Gaspar (CERN)

14:15 → 14:40 New features in WinCC OA Trending

Speakers: Jonas Arroyo Garcia (CERN), Petra Mazdin (Ministere des affaires etrangeres et europeennes (FR))

Trending2_0-1.0.0.zip

Trending_2_0.pdf

Trending_2_0.pptx

14:40 → 14:55 Discussion of fwTrending roadmap for 2017

14:55 → 15:00 AOB