Re: suggestion

[Ray Henry <rehenry-at-up.net>]

On Wednesday 09 October 2002 04:19 am, Robin wrote:
> On Wednesday 09 October 2002 02:03, Hassan S. Rabe wrote:
> > Hi Ray,
> >
> > have a suggestion at this point...instead of
> > having all the configuration values for all the interfaces
> > steppermod, freqmod, stgmod...etc, in one file.ini, why there won't
> > be a configuration dialogue Box that has several pages, each one of
> > theses pages deal with a certain mode and has all the variables that
> > need to be changed even connect the variables that has some kind of a
> > relationship.
>
> umm ..  and if you are trying to modify the .ini on a machine without X
> ? and if you know what you want to do but cant get the GUI to do it
> without it upsetting something else? I dislike GUI's for simple tasks
> such as this.
>
> Personally I prefer munging the .ini by hand ... Most of the problems
> arise out of having a 'generic' .ini with half the stuff not used etc
> etc .. whats really needed is in the emc.ini file  sections such as
>
> [INCLUDE steppermod.ini]
>
> where steppermod.ini contains only the required parameters for that
> module, freqmod.ini for that module etc, this would also allow basic
> working setups to be distributed with emc for each type of module and
> if done correctly, you should be able to just [INCLUDE ... ] the one
> you want to try with some degree of success.
>
> this would mean that the ini was split over several files (which has
> its problems) but most of the problems Ive seen on the list relate to
> confusion over what does what and whats not used.  If split into
> several files the appropriate information could be included in a
> comment adjacent to the paramter with what it actually does in that
> module ( see the Apache httpd.conf for a very good example of this
> style )
>
>  a simple bit of Perl could be written to
> analyse the files and issue warnings
>
> WARN baz is more than 10 times foo/bar at line 12 of stepermod.ini
>
> etc. I did begin updating the documentation , but work has got in the
> way (again) ...

Good thoughts here.  I agree that most of the problems encountered by 
newbes, once they get past the install, relates to configuration of the 
ini file for their device.  You need to be around it a while and 
comfortable with text editing in order to make changes to it.

Since the ini is read by a number of processes and files during startup, 
I believe that it would be more trouble than it is worth to divide it 
over several files.  About 93 percent of the ini is the same for freqmod, 
steppermod, you-name-it-mod, I think that we need a gui ini 
editor/configurator rather than separate files for each type of system.  

Let me propose a modular sort of setup system using Tcl/Tk.  Attached is 
a possible front-end and an example, based around an annoyance that I've 
encountered off and on for quite a while.  What I wanted was a single 
button that will copy the run, ini, var, tbl, and nml files for a new 
setup and fix the run file reference to the ini and the ini references to 
the var, nml, and tbl files.  

Copy the attached into an emc directory and untar it there.  In case you 
forgot the command it's "tar xzvf setup.tgz" and It adds a file named 
"setup" to the emc directory and a directory, "setup" to the emc/tcl 
directory and places three files in there.  To run it type ./setup in the 
emc directory.

The front-end file, setup, looks at the emc/tcl/setup directory and makes 
a pair of buttons for any .tcl file it finds in there.  One button 
executes the *.tcl file, the other reads a .txt file with the same name 
and displays it as help.  I made a little library file of processes that 
might help with other setup procedures.

Snip this and Post your feelings about it.  If we decide it works, I'll 
put it in the repository and we can begin to build other modules for it.  
If you have mods, additions, ideas and you can't wait hack up this and 
pass it around.

Ray

setup.tgz