Monthly Archives: March 2010

Feldman Project Log Day 2

  • Worked with Phil to get framework together
  • Got it working.  Need to declare Enum completely in parent class so all states that children are going to use should be declared there.
  • Must use parent variables for Enum.  If not they will not be able to set equal to the other.
  • Made angleToSteps formula _angle/1.8 * 16 this seems to work very accurately.  Obviously the Stepper with the gear box will need a separate formula to move it correctly but this will work for the other 2.
  • Tried to get it to loop the movement not working currently.  Only move once per run.

Phil 3.5.2010

8:00 -4:30

  • Looks like my desk will be moving soon at the customer site
  • Tried to log into the demo this morning. Couldn’t reach the meeting site because of certificate errors, and could call in because the conference system couldn’t parse my phone’s keypad entry
  • Integrating ConfigManager and a bit of user management
  • Working on building an RCS hierarchy

Phil 3.4.2010

7:30 – 4:00

  • I wonder if I’ll ever be able to fill in my timesheet again…
  • Setting up the Java (.war) and Flex sides of the VisibilityScripting project
  • This process needs a wizard…
  • Adding user login and integrating ConfigManager

Dong 03.04.2010

  • flexmojos allows flex swc files to be packaged with war file
    • add a flex dependency to server project file
  • mvn generated swc doesn’t show source; add it manually by Project Properties->Flex Build Path
  • user management database restore functional
  • added roles to user management

Phil 3.3.2010

8:00 – 4:00

  • Mike C added a new table to the VIS2 to handle what equipment is at what desk. Ingested and displayed smoothly
  • More Jython. Working on pulling a table response apart. It’s actually pretty neat with Jython in that you can use java data structures directly
  • And now I have a Jython script getting data out of a database using JDBC and building an xml document. Neat!
  • Next Steps:
    • Set up a flex-based editor that talks to two databases – one for the scripts, and one for the data
    • It should be possible to test run a script to a “console” out to see if its working. We need to tie this into the alerting mechanism somehow. I’m thinking that the scripts are run “in production” from the FormBuilder system. This way, the when and why a script is run can be chosen easily(?) by the user. The actual content of the script is hidden.
    • Script is stored in DB and run through the Scriptrunner as a string. Output is logged?
    • Script table needs an id, a name, a description, the script, and an author(s)

Dong 03.03.2010

  • FormBuilder maven’ized – testing…. done.
  • creating users/roles object (flex, database, java)….
  • MvnAssist bug found
    • Flex Core Components not shown in Design View
    • found commented out lines in MvnAssist.java to add default Flex libs dir
    • fixed and deployed to LaurelDemo (1.7.7)

Dong 03.02.2010

  • checked in MySQLIf to Subversion, checked out to different location and didn’t work! – needed to rerun flexmojos:flexbuilder
  • started documentation on MvnAssist at wiki @ http://laureldemo.edge-technologies.com:8080/wiki
  • having problems with mvn:deploy on Flex project
    • unable to transcode error for the embedded images
    • 3.2.0 bug?
    • tried 3.2-SNAPSHOT as indicated at some website; couldn’t locate the snapshot file
    • 3.3.0; cannot load pom.xml at all
    • 3.4.0 and 3.5.0; same error
    • all the embedded assets must be in /src/main/resources directory!
  • deployed MySQLIf.swc version 1.0 to repository – MySQLIf-1.0.swc
  • mavenizing ObjectHandles.swc – com.roguedevelopment.objecthandles
    • removed Flex 4 references
    • added degrafa reference (dependency) to pom.xml
    • done – deployed to the repository – objecthandles-1.0.swc
  • mavenizing FormBuilder client (flex)

Phil 3.2.2010

7:30 – 3:30

  • Spent some time going over the “Butts in Seats” file that he’s going to be generating
  • Sent Tom Herbert info on NetworkWidget
  • More work on Jython. Things should go better now that I have the proper jar file.
  • Uploaded standalone jython jar file to our repo
  • Setting up a python development environment to test code. Getting Eclipse 3.5.2 and pyDev (http://pydev.org/)
  • Eclipse 3.5.2 is now in the subversion repo
  • Looking at the UMD HCC PhD – http://www.is.umbc.edu/programs/graduate/HCC_PhD_program.asp

Feldman Project Log Day 1

  • Plugged in and tested InterFace kit(http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=0&product_id=1019) and Stepper Controller(http://www.phidgets.com/products.php?category=13&product_id=1063) using the drivers found http://www.phidgets.com/drivers.php.  Easy way to make sure things are working just open up the phidget control panel and double click on the controller you want to test and an interface with options relevant to the controller pops up.  This is also a good way to find the optimal settings for the stepper motor because you can change all of them just by using the sliders.
  • Started playing with some of the example programs.  It is important to note that the standard C examples will not work with Visual Studio.  You need to use the VC++ examples.  When creating a new project the include and library file directories will have to be added.  An example of what settings to change can be found at http://www.steptools.com/support/stdev_docs/express/help/settings_vcnet.html.
  • Edited the Callback for the input change to activate output 0 and 7 when input 0’s button is pushed.   Noticed that 0 and 7 had the opposite negative and positive.  Looking at the board I realized the two ends on the output side are grounds.  This is also true on the input side.  Not sure but this might mean that we always need one of the leads to go to one of the ends to work.
  • Edited motor controller example tried to make it so the motor would spin one rotation and stop.  Could not get it to stop accelerating.  It would start off stalled due to low acceleration, work for sometime in the middle, stall again because it went over its max speed.  Tried changing max speed but that did not seem to do anything.  The velocity limit was set to 1/2 max and the acceleration was set to 2*min.  It is possible that the current wasn’t set right to go over a certain amount.  Can also set it so when speed is x acceleration is 0 using change velocity event handler.
  • Both examples worked with both controllers plugged in.  I think you only need to specify if you have two of the same items like two stepper controllers.  In the case of two stepper controllers there is an index that you can pass in the parameters of the stepper methods.  One way to make sure the steppers keep the same index every time is to identify them by serial number.  There might be other ways but this way is recommended in the general programming manual http://www.phidgets.com/documentation/Programming_Manual.pdf.

Dong 03.01.2010

  • fixed a bug in FormWizard not closing properly on Cancel
  • installed and configured Drupal Project module for evaluation; couldn’t get it to behave properly, not ready for 6.1.x version. sigh….
  • BugFlex?
  • separating database code from DBFormBuilder using MvnAssist – done
    • Eclipse gives me one line compile error at a time, ugh!
    • ran out of heap space?

Phil 3.1.2010

7:30 – 4:30

  • Tried to deploy the new version of VISIBILITY today but the table names didn’t match. It appears that the parsing of the table names was different from what was stored – possibly a space. Added better trimming of names and logging to make sure. Going to burn a new disk and try tomorrow.
  • Back to jython. Adding the facade methods to get to the database and read and write xml – got the facades in place. I think that the code editing app should only be runnable by administrators (or some similar role) as opposed to testing the role of the user (who may not have written the script). Do we need to track the people who have touched a script?
  • Not getting the xml pythin library importing correctly. Going to spend some time with the jython.bat file to see what’s being included. AND HERE’S WHY: You have to setup with the “standalone” install, that has a jar file with everything you need. If you install the default, you’re screwed. Sigh.