epicsQt
EPICS Qt 4.1 Release Notes
Release Index
r4.1.2
r4.1.1
Earlier Releases
r4.1.2
Release date: 20th December 2024.
general
The main change in this release is the removal of most depricated usage compiler warnings. Special thanks to Sean Dawson re updates later than Qt6.4.
I currently do regular nightly builds using Qt6.4 on AlmaLinux9, CentOS Stream 8 and Windows 10, and using Qt5.12.8 on CentOS 7. I also do irregular builds using Qt6.4 on Debian 12.
qeframework
QEPlotter
The menuSelected slot method is now public (to allow programtic control of the widget).
QEAlarmColourSelection
This is a new widget to allow dynamic selection of the alarm colours. This superceeds any QE_STYLE_COLOR_NAMES and QE_COLOR_NAMES environment variable settings.
QEAbstract2DData
This widget now uses the vector value functions as opposed to the [] operator to access cached data. This is a significant optimisation.
QECaClient
The CA client now used the vector variants, as opposed to QVariantLists. This is also provides significant optimisation.
QEHistogram
This widget has been updated to handle setting min/max values better (and consistant with other widgets). This now allows setting a min value >= the default max value. This change also bebefits the QEScalarHistogram and QEWaveformHistogram widgets.
QEArchiveStatus
The QEArchiveStatus widget now shows total number of PVs.
QEStripChart
This has updated to handle to betercheck for NaNs and and infinities.
Adaptation parameters
Allow hex (and other radix) integers when accessing integer adaptation parameters.
Added a getFilename function to adaptation paramaters. This interprets a leading “~/” text as in the user’s home directory.
qegui
The Alarm Colour Selection widget has been incorporated into the qegui display manager in the Tools menu.
r4.1.1
Release date: 24th August 2024.
This is the first release of EPICS Qt version 4 and the first release of the 4.1 series.
whats new in version 4
The main change for this major release is how bespoke property enumeration types are defined in each of the QE widgets.
In version 3, each widget defined it’s own version of common enumeration types used by the framework (e.g. the displayAlarmStateOption property) and made these available to designer with their own Q_ENUM (enumeration-type) declaration. In the actual xml ui file, using QELabel as an example, this would be saved as:
<property name="displayAlarmStateOption">
<enum>QELabel::WhenInAlarm</enum>
</property>
In version 4, essentially all common propery enumeration types are now specified in a single file (QEEnums.h) in a single object class (QE) together with a single Q_ENUM declaration. In the actual xml ui file this would be saved as:
<property name="displayAlarmStateOption">
<enum>QE::WhenInAlarm</enum>
</property>
The advantages of this are:
- less boiler-plate code in each widget header file,
- easier to maintain consistancy,
- because the ui file no longer include the widget class name where the property is defined it will be possible to relocate properties to, possibly new, intermedate class parents, and/or refactor the class hiearchy without breaking any existing ui files.
The disadvantages is ui files created using EPICS Qt version 3 may be incompatible with version 4, specifically if they have explicitly specified a value for one of the relocated enumeration properties. A python tool is avilable to upgrade ui files created with version 3 to be compatible with version 4.
Please see the upgrading to version 4 page more details.
Once upgraded, from a ui form designer point of view, creating and modifying ui files, with a couple of specific exceptions, looks exactly as it did with version 3. These exceptions are also detailed in the upgrading to version 4 guide.
If you have written your own widget plugin module, some code changes may be be required - the complier will help you find these. Please refer to the upgrading to version 4 guide.
general
During the migration to version 4 and ironing out any issues before releasing to the wider community a number of other on-going updates to the framework and the display manager - these are detailed below.
qeframework
QEStripChart
This widget has been modified to only generate statatisitcs using points explicity displayed on the chart; we do not include any points before or after (such as a value at time now which can adveresly skew the statistics of historical data).
Internal Archive Meta Data
Use simpler data structues to hold archive related PV meta data to greatly reduce the memory requirement. On our system, with approx 500000 (TBC) PVs this saved about 2.8GB.
Also, when the end time is invalid and less that start time, typically 0, set to the current rerad time. This avoids time range (TBC exact wording) errors.
QENumericEdit, QNumericEdit
Modified to have a value wrap-around/modulo capability. This only applies when the new wrapValue property is set true.
QELCDNumber
Hide unnecessary properties in designer, plus use standard code indentation.
Drag/drop
Rework to get drag/drop working as actually intended. Also improved standard drag/drop to inhibit initiating drag with empty text.
QECaClient, QEPvaClient
Update protocol clients to be polymorphic and leverage off this in the QCaObject class.
QEAbstractDynamicWidget
Stop unwanted pixmap properties being seen in designer.
Including/excluding PV Access
The QE_PVACCESS_SUPPORT environment variable is now honored by make. Previously, this was selected by the use to EPICS base 7 or later. Now is can be explicity defined as YES or NO by the user. If undefined, then the previous behaviour is preserved.
Bug fixes and othet code impovements
QEGroupBox, QEPvLoadSaveButton: Tidy up the setManagedVisible slot function.
Remove warning: implicitly-declared operator= warnings (exposed with gcc 11.4.1 on Alma 9), and other deprecated function calls.
windowCustomisation : check is same customisation is being applied - if so return.
Ensure the result of a str.toStdString().c_str() operation stays in scope.
qegui
Help | About dialog
Allow clip-board copy of ui filename/pathnames from windows tab.
Menu: New Window
Rather than just creating an empty window which needs the Open Window menu entry to be selected to do anything usefull, the New Window menu now invokes the open file dialog.
QEGuiApp.pro
Added console to the config - this allow console (standardout) output on windows.
Earlier Releases
Please see the release notes 3.9 page for the the 3.9 series release notes.
Please see the release notes 3.8 page for the the 3.8 series release notes.
Please see the release notes 3.7 page for the the 3.7 series release notes.
Please see the release notes 3.6 page for the the 3.6 series release notes.
Please see the release notes 3.5 page for the the 3.5 series release notes.
Please see the release notes 3.4 page for the the 3.4 series release notes.
Last updated: Fri Dec 20 12:30:12 AEDT 2024