LinkControl vs caQtDM

LinkControl is an automation application that can be used to control lights, dimmers, motors and other physical devices. This application is essentially a button processing application that needs to be paired with a server component that ultimately controls the physical devices. This application downloads button definitions from the server application and when a button is pressed a button identifier is returned to the server indicating which button was pressed. With that information the server decides the appropriate next step. LinkControl has no knowledge of the overall process as it just handles button definitions and button presses.

The EPICS display manager MEDM is a very powerful tool with many features and satisfies most of the needs for synoptic displays. However MEDM is based on MOTIF/Xt and X11, systems/libraries that are getting into age. Moreover applications using those systems are difficult to maintain and to extend. At PSI a new Qt based application was written, reproducing the functionality of MEDM. Moreover a parser was written to convert the MEDM files into Qt files, the resulting displays being an exact reproduction of the MEDM displays. It has to be noticed that the widgets used are not directly epics aware. The idea was to strictly separate the control system from the display part, in order to be able to add other controlsystems if necesssary (which is still the case for our high intensity particle accelerator). An application is never finished and can always be improved and new things can be added. This is therefore also the case for caQtDM. The widgets could be improved, not everything has been finished and bugs will be found. This App is directly build out of the same sources like the linux/mac or windows version with the help of Qt. For using it a http server with the configuration files (network/gateway/environment) and display files is needed.