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Display Builder Web Runtime

Create displays in the desktop version of the CS-Studio Display Builder and use them in the control room. This web runtime then provides convenient remote access.

  • Use any web browser with zero client-side installation, including smart phones
  • Supports most widgets and their key features

For more, see DisplayBuilderWebRuntime.pdf presentation from 2019 EPICS Meeting at ITER. If you are using EDM, see related Web EDM Runtime.

Version Info

See bottom of src/main/webapp/index.jsp

Binary

.. is available as https://controlssoftware.sns.ornl.gov/css_phoebus/nightly/dbwr.war but you may prefer to build it locally as described next.

Building

Ideally, you build the binaries from sources because that way you can control which version of the JDK you're using.

To build with maven:

mvn clean package

Project can also be imported into Eclipse JEE IDE via File, Import, Maven, Existing Maven Projects.

Docker

Edit .env file with settings for git version and port number and docker/setenv.sh with your local site settings for Display/web socket settings. Then:

docker-compose build

Basic Configuration and Running under Tomcat

First, install the PV Web Socket, which must be available on the same Tomcat instance.

Set the following environment variables, for example in $CATALINA_HOME/bin/setenv.sh:

  • DBWR1, DBWR2, ...: URLs of displays to suggest on the start page.
  • WHITELIST1, WHITELIST2, ...: Regular expressions of allowed displays.

When no WHITELIST1 entries are defined, .* will be used.

Place dbwr.war in $CATALINA_HOME/webapps

If you placed the pvws.war in the same Tomcat instance as the dbwr.war, there is nothing to configure. By default, the display runtime will connect to the PV Web Socket under the same base URL. When you access the displays via http://some_host:8080/dbwr/..., it will connect to PVs via ws://some_host:8080/pvws.

If you want to connect to the PV Web Socket on a different URL, for example on a different host, you need to configure this via the following environment variables

  • PVWS_HOST: Hostname and port of PV Web Socket when not co-located with dbwr.war, for example some.other.host.org:8081
  • PVWS_HTTP_PROTOCOL: http or https based on what pvws uses (default is http)
  • PVWS_WS_PROTOCOL: Web socket protocol of PV Web Socket, either ws or wss (default is ws)

Additional Configuration Options

  • DEFAULT_PLOT_RING_SIZE: Size of live data ring buffer for DataBrowser and Stripchart widget, defaults to 5000.

Docker

To run docker container (use -d option to run in detached mode):

docker-compose up

The status can be seen with docker ps. The status will be healthy if the dbwr index page loads

docker ps

Client URLs

Open the main page of the running instance for explanation of URLs used to open displays. Assuming Tomcat on localhost:8080, open

http://localhost:8080/dbwr

When you then open a display, you'll find that the resulting URL has the general format

http://localhost:8080/dbwr/view.jsp?display=URL_OF_THE_DISPLAY.bob

To access display files that you also use in the control room, you have two basic options. You can make them available in the web server's file system, for example via a network file system mount or by periodically fetching a copy of the current displays from a version control system. In that case, use URLs like ...view.jsp?display=file:/path/to/display.bob, where the file path refers to the file system of the web server. Alternatively, you may expose the display files themselves via a web server. For example, assume that http://my_control_system_host/displays/path/to/display.bob serves a display file, then a URL like ...view.jsp?display=http://my_control_system_host/displays/path/to/display.bob will instruct the display web runtime to fetch that display file and render it.

You might be concerned that the web runtime could be misused to probe the file system of the tomcast host via for example ...view.jsp?display=file:/etc/password. To prevent this, refer to the WHITELIST.. settings mentioned above and use them to limit access to only the file:/path/to/.* or http://my_control_system_host/displays/path/to/.* paths that you intent to expose.

While the web runtime can fundamentally read the same display files as the desktop version of the display builder, note that it is a separate implementation that can't be 100% compatible. While most widgets and their key features are supported, even including some rules, scripts are not, and plots are also simplified. In addition, displays created for desktop usage in the control room are often too big to be useful on a smaller device like a phone. It might thus be necessary to optimize desktop displays, for example to split one large desktop display into smaller displays meant for remote access.

The display information is cached, so when you edit a display file and would like to force an update to the web version right away, circumventing the cache, add cache=false to the request:

http://localhost:8080/dbwr/view.jsp?cache=false&display=URL_OF_THE_DISPLAY.bob

Each time the display is fetched with cache=false, the entry in the cache is replaced with a newly parsed display, replacing the cached version. Following calls without cache or with cache=true will then again fetch the cached display.

Development Status

Maven layout is based on

mvn archetype:generate -DgroupId=gov.ornl -DartifactId=dbwr -DarchetypeArtifactId=maven-archetype-webapp -DinteractiveMode=false

The following widget types and features have been implemented with basic functionality:

  • Label
  • Rectangle
  • Ellipse
  • Arc
  • Polyline
  • Polygon
  • Text Update
  • Text Input (can write)
  • Text formatting (precision, units, enum labels)
  • LED
  • Multi-State LED
  • Byte monitor
  • Action Button to open display or web link
  • Action Button to write value to PV
  • Combo
  • Group with 'Group', 'Title, 'Line' or 'None' styles
  • Embedded Displays
  • Tabs
  • Navigation Tabs
  • Template/Instances
  • Basic XYPlot, Data Browser (for live data), Stripchart representation
  • Image, runtime options to change scaling and color map
  • Macro support
  • Alarm-sensitive border based on PV
  • Limited Rule support: Color of rect/circle/label, visibility
  • Caching

In principle, the PV Web Socket supports both Channel Access and PV Access, but so far all testing of the display builder web runtime has concentrated on Channel Access.

Widget Implementation

Each widget needs to derive from dbwr.widgets.Widget and register in widget.properties. The widget constructor parses the display file XML for the widget.

Static Widget

A static widget implements Widget.fillHTML() to create the static HTML content.

For an example, see LabelWidget.java or EllipseWidget.java.

Dynamic Widget

A dynamic widget registers Javascript in a static initializer that calls WidgetFactory.addJavaScript(). That Javascript can then register init or update methods via DisplayBuilderWebRuntime.prototype.widget_init_methods and DisplayBuilderWebRuntime.prototype.widget_update_methods.

'Dynamic' widgets are usually based on a single PV and use the PVWidget base class to place the PV name into a data-pv attribute. Any widget with a data-pv attribute in its widget HTML will automatically subscribe to that PV. It should register a java script method in DisplayBuilderWebRuntime.prototype.widget_update_methods to handle the received PV updates.

For an example, see ProgressBarWidget.java.

PVs with multiple PVs can subscribe to additional PVs in their widget_init_methods.