Excitations demo (MAPS, MERLIN, MARI, LET, ALF) 12.03.2020

• They like the run control option for devices becoming disconnected, suggested that this could be on by default

• They liked the idea of being able to configure which perspectives they see on an instrument (e.g. remove Alarms view or IOC log)

• Linting:

  • They were really happy that scripts are getting linted!
  • The linting is too slow
  • MERLIN liked the linting but wanted additional logical checks to stop e.g.:

  cset(temp=50)
  wait_for(temp=51)

• Script server:

  • MARI used the script server last year, but found that they couldn't import inst. This should be fixed now
  • Scientists seemed genuinely excited about this getting closer to production-ready
  • They would like an abort currently running script button which does not clear the queue (current button clears everything)
  • They would like linting to be applied to scripts in the script server too
  • While pausing a script in the script server, the pause logo did not appear correctly in the perspective switcher

• MARI makes some use of the genie simulation mode, and have also written their own simulator for block names.

  • We might be able to make the block name checker more widely available. This currently lives on NDXMARI.
  • MARI have started looking at the simulation mode as a way to estimate script time

• Script generator:

  • They didn't like the generated script containing all of the information required to define the script
  • They wanted the generator to be integrated in with the script server, with a split generator/script server perspective
  • Again seemed quite keen for this to be production-ready

• Features/issues the scientists raised:

  • Need to add bi-directional homing for their McLennan motors
  • Checked in on the Beckhoff progress
  • Re-requested the PyDev buttons in the scripting perspective to be personalised

• NDXDEMO was sluggish thoughout the whole demo which made things difficult.