Green Monster Doc
Green Monster appearance as it appeared on 2019-04-10.
Quick Links
Functionality Outline
The purpose of reworking the Green Monster is so that the GUI will not rely on the ROOT GUI libraries which are old, and difficult to extend. Also newer ROOT versions may end up deprecating or changing the functionality that the 17 year-old code relies on. This presents a challenge in that the new GUI has to interface with the legacy code in cfSockCli.c and cfSockSer.c.
The Green Monster now uses the python language GUI library TKinter, which is inbuilt into all distributions of python 3. The main file for the GUI is on adaq at /adaqfs/home/ajzec/PyGreenMonster/GreenMonster.py The python files that create the GUI are in the same directory as that file, while the C++ files providing the Green Monster's back-end are located at /adaqfs/home/ajzec/PyGreenMonster/cfSock/
Each of the tabs in the GUI have their own python class file which acts as an interface to their own C++ class file. That C++ class file then becomes an interface to cfSockCli.c which is the legacy code that eventually attaches to the VXWorks boards in the counting house and injector crates.
The function of the Green Monster is to pass options, and variables up and down these levels.
Layer Concept
In order to keep the new Green Monster as extensible as possible, there needs to be several layers to separate the python classes from the C classes, and the server-side code. There are six in total, and the philosophy of the Green Monster design is to have as few layers passing data between each other as possible.
Layer 1: Green Monster GUI
This is the layer that contains the Green Monster class and only occupies GreenMonster.py. Here the various tabs at the top of the GM menu are created, though they aren't filled in this layer. The ability to create and quit the window is also here.
Usage
The Green Monster requires python 3 to run. After navigating to the directory run it with python3 GreenMonster.py
The Green Monster is still in active development, so many functions are not implemented, and others are broken. As of 2019-04-10 the only functioning tab is the "Timeboard" tab in the "Expert" section. This section will update as development continues.
