CSS News

The following table describes differences between the current and previous versions of CSS.

Version numbers refer to the name of the ZIP or TGZ file that you download from this web site, like css_linux_x86_1.0.19.tgz for version 1.0.19.
To locate the version of a running CSS instance, use the menu "Help", "About SNS CSS", "Plug-in Details", then locate the version of the plugin "org.csstudio.sns.product".

Date/Version News
2009-10-05, 1.0.21
  • Preview of "Best OPI Yet"
  • RDB Table Editor
  • Data Browser Tweaks:
    "New Databrowser plot" entry in toolbar;
    DataBrowser Perspective enabled for new plots;
    Unused 'Y' axes are automatically removed;
    Pending archive requests stop when time axis is changed.
  • Data Browser tool tips and support for shading now optional.
    At least in the SNS control room with GTK 2.4.13, some of these features seem to cause problem, resulting in crash with symptoms as if 'xkill' was used on CSS. Config file options of the 'chart' plugin can now disable these some features for debugging the issue.
  • Better Alarm System support for multiple configurations
2009-08-11, 1.0.20 Mostly about SNS alarm system and development:
2009-July-02, 1.0.19 SNS transition to Oracle-based archive:
  • Data Browser:
    Preconfigured for new RDB-based archive;
    'Cancel' for ongoing archive requests actually works;
    Re-scale behavior now a preference in GUI
  • Alarm GUI tree and table have consistent tool tips: Entries which are "OK" skip the "(OK/OK/..)" display.
  • PACE has configurable default logbook
  • "Basic EPICS" product includes latest SDS demo: new XYGraph, updated DAL, ...
2009-May-15, 1.0.18 New Product arrangement:
  • Code based on "Common Startup"
  • Website rearranged, new "Basic EPICS" product
  • "Basic EPICS" product lacked Probe, Channel Access Preference GUI, DAL/EPICS (fixed May 18)
2009-Mar-17, 1.0.17
  • PV Field Viewer to display all fields of an EPICS record, both 'crawled' values from Oracle and current from Channel Access
  • Data Browser
    • Manual axis limit entry was broken.
    • Shaded min/max area outline uses 'transparent' color.
    • Data Browser scrolling enabled/disabled based on end time being 'now' or not
  • Alarm Tree can 'duplicate' PVs to simplify entry of similar PVs
2009-Feb-4, 1.0.16
  • When setting Markers in the Data Browser plot, they now appear on the closest data point instead of defaulting to traces on the right-most axis when no specific axis is selected.
  • Data Browser Plot has option to hide an axis. Traces of axis are still shown. This is meant for special scenarios where more room for plot is needed at the expense of not seeing the actual value range, similar to StripTool.
  • Diagnostics tools 'Rack View' to display SNS rack information.
  • 'PACE' Tool.
2008-Dec-03, 1.0.15
  • Data Browser Markers can be edited.
2008-Nov-6, 1.0.14
  • Data Browser "Cheat Sheet".
  • Configurable Data Browser colors for overall plot (background, ...).
  • Data Browser configuration saves/loads Markers.
  • Source snapshot includes RDB ChannelArchiver for collaborator sites.
2008-Sept-16, 1.0.13
  • ELog-export allows to choose the elog (Operations, ...).
  • Channel Access options to configure subscription.
2008-Sept-3, 1.0.12
  • Data Browser supports a new "Area" plot type that displays the min/max envelope of optimized archive data as a shaded area. Online help has been updated and extended.
  • New version of the SNS PV Utility for PV/device lookup.
2008-June-20, 1.0.11
  • Data Browser "live" buffer default is bigger, and configuration panel offers memory usage info.
  • JMS log support
2008-May-21, 1.0.10
  • Data Browser has multi-level 'undo' for zoom/pan operations.
  • Data Browser can send snapshot to ELog.
2008-April-15, 1.0.9
  • Command-line option to create 'linked resource' for a 'Share' folder.
2008-April-9, 1.0.8
  • Initial workspace dialog now optional; new workspace related command-line options; initial workspace selection works without "restart".
2008-March-31, 1.0.7
  • Added "PV Tool" (PV lookup in SNS Oracle)
  • Added "Post Analyzer" tool (line fit, FFT, ...)
  • Data Browser can print
2008-Feb-12, 1.0.6
  • PV list in Sample View didn't track current Data Browser.
  • Data Browser fixes: Entered endless loop when last sample in archive was Not-a-Number; formula variable names were not always editable.
  • CSS/Web menu for web links.
2007-Dec-19, 1.0.5
  • Update of Channel Access client libraries to avoid lockups.
  • Data Browser online help was broken, patched Dec 19.
2007-Nov-21, 1.0.4
  • Data Browser online help has a page on Formula usage.
  • Fix: Data Browser export used wrong start/end times when source was set to 'plot'.
  • Warnings when exporting formula data, or trying to delete inputs to formulas.
  • "Workplace Explorer" was replaced with a "Navigator" that has more file handling capabilities (copy, paste, rename, filter on file names, ...).
When you start this new version of CSS for the first time on a Workspace that was used with a previous version, the following errors can appear:
  • An initial error message "Cannot restore workbench layout. ...", and maybe follow-up errors "Error opening the editor ...":
    Just press OK on each of them.
  • Instances of the Data Browser etc. that you had running when closing the previous version of CSS now show up as empty except for "Error opening the editor ..." text:
    Close those Data Browser etc. windows. You can open their files again in the Workspace Navigator.
  • The "Workspace Explorer" that you used to see is gone:
    Open the new "Navigator" via the menu File/Open Workspace Navigator.
On subsequent starts, all should be fine.
2007-Nov-07, 1.0.3
  • Fix for OS X with 'Intel' CPUs.
  • Fix for problems in the initial workspace access that sometimes resulted in JVM crashes, especially on Linux.
  • Fix for various hangups from endless loops for certain Data Browser start/end time selections.
  • Time and value 'tool tip' in Data Browser plot no longer leaves trail under Linux.
  • Workspace default is now 'CSS-Workspaces/Default' in your home directory.
    The previous default was a 'workspace' directory in the CSS application, for example 'sns_css_win32_1.0.2/workspace' on Windows, which made it harder to keep configuration files while updating CSS.
    If you want to use previously created configuration files for the Data Browser after downloading this latest version of CSS:
    1. Run the new CSS application. At the initial workspace prompt, it will suggest 'CSS-Workspaces/Default' in your home directory, and you can typically accept that.
    2. Separately, open that new workspace directory as well as your old workspace directory in the Windows "Explorer" or Mac OS "Finder", and use that to copy files of interest from the old into the new workspace.
Note that this web site contained garbage for 1.0.3 from Nov-05 until about noon on Nov-07. In case you downloaded during that time, please try again.
2007-Aug-22, 1.0.2
  • Runs with Java 1.5 as well as 1.6.
  • JNI version of CA is now supported without need to set ((DY)LD_LIBRARY_)PATH.
  • DataBrowser shows min/max/average when looking at wider time range, yet switches to raw samples when zooming in closer. (requires appropriate support from the data server. Currently available with the SNS main archive).
  • DataBrowser can save current plot as image (PNG) files.
  • Probe with "meter".
  • Fix for hangup after closing the Data Browser "Config" view.
  • PV Table "save" creates file with correct file extension.
2007-Jul-11, 1.0.1 Online update possible.
  • Clock can now be configured to use 24...35 hour days.
  • PV Tree supports more record types, fix for lockup with JNI CA on the controls network.
2007-Jul-06, 1.0.0 Start of this web page
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