User:AndrewJohnson/QT Initiative

Subject: QT-based tools: Expressions of interest requested

Control System Studio (CSS) is now 5+ years old and has an excellent and rich selection of tools for creating GUIs and other programs for interacting with an EPICS control system. However (there's always a "but" after that kind of introduction isn't there!) there are sites, systems, programs, places and people for which Java, Eclipse and/or SWT are not seen as a suitable environment. This message are not in any way trying to replace or denigrate CSS, it's about providing an alternative where CSS is not appropriate.

This is a call for expressions of interest in a collaboration to develop tools and technologies based on the QT toolkit. A number of EPICS users have spoken about QT (pronounced "cute")as the most obvious replacement for the X11 and Motif tool-kits used by the old extensions MEDM, EDM, EDD/DM, dm2k, ALH, StripTool, Probe, Burt, etc. A number of QT-based projects have already been developed at various sites. If your lab/site/application has GUI needs which can't be fulfilled using CSS and you are interested in working together using QT, please respond to this email with what your needs and interests are, and what resources you might be able to contribute.

I hope to moderate a discussion on this "QT Initiative" at the EPICS meeting at SLAC in April; all interested parties welcome.

The APS has a long-term need to replace the Motif-based programs MEDM, ALH and StripTool, which are heavily used by the operators in our control room and by other staff around the site. John Hammonds and various others have developed the ADL-to-BOY converter for CSS which is currently in use at one of the APS beamlines, but we don't believe that all of our current users will be willing or able to run CSS. We have a developer in our group who has fairly extensive QT experience, and are particularly interested in the EPICS QT work that has been developed at the Australian Synchrotron.

- Andrew