epicsQt

EPICS Qt 4.1 Release Notes

Release Index

r4.1.4
r4.1.3
r4.1.2
r4.1.1
Earlier Releases

r4.1.4

Release date: 5th Dec 2025

general

Nothing ground-braking this release, just general improvements including a couple of improvments provided by Christian Nothoff.

For third party widget developers: note the have been some minor APU changes.

qeframework

QEImage/mpeg

This now support avformat/avcodec version 59 (as used by Alma 9);
The mpeg module still compiles against avformat/avcodec version 58 (as used by CentOS stream 8);
and has dropped support for avformat/avcodec version 57 (as used by CentOS 7).

QEImage

Fixed the from mpeg slot specification missed during transition to version 4.

QCaObject

Updated so that during object destruction we disconnect signals/slots connections before calling client->closeChannel (). This avoids occasional corrupted double-linked list errors.

QEFLoating/QEInteger/QEString

We now handle QStringList variant types (from STRING array PVs), This was especially applicable when the selected array-mode is Ascii, and avoids malloc unchain warnings and segmentation faults.

Control Widgets (excluding buttons):

Added a number of setPvValue slot functions which take a bool, int, double or QString value. These allow non framework widgets to effectively write values to the asociated PV using the signal slot mechanism. Credit: Christian Nothoff

QEButtons

Co-locate the clickCheckedText and clickText properties. This only affects the property order of appearance in designer.

QEStringFormatting

When time formating is selected, use the raw string if PV value is non-numeric.

QEPlot

Ensure the yMin property values always less than the yMax property value (cribbed from strip chart). Use yMin in log mode, even when autoscale is set.

QEPvLoadSave

Implemented the sort functionality to sort items by PV name.

QEStripChart

Added a write all traces to file capability (there is a new button on the tool bar). All values are reampled to the same 1 second time interval prior to writing to a file, using text or csv format.

Refreshed the tool bar button icons.

QEDescriptionLabel

Added an enableDots property; this right pads the text with repeating “ . . . “.

QESpinBox

Added an autoStepSize property; allow auto step size selection, and make this widget somewhat similar to the QENumericEdit. Credit: Christian Nothoff

QEAnalogSlider/QAnalogSlider

Updated widget to auto scale the minor, major intervals and the precison.

QEFileBrowser

This widget now honours font setting, and had an optional boarder, and controllable margins.

QEArchiveStatus

Added a little colour - just for fun.

QEManagePixmaps

The managePixmaps class has been renameed to QEManagePixmaps (filenames unchanged). The number of allowd pixmaps has increased form 8 to 16.

QELabel, QEFrame and QEGenericButton have been updated to use new QEManagePixmaps and now have additional pixmap properties.

Note: This change may impact 3rd party widgets.

QEScaling

The QEScaling class now also scales push button icon sizes.

QEEnums

Thus class now provides an enum value to string and reverse function string to enum value functions together with a count/number enum values function.

VariableNameManager/VariableManager

The classes now use more approrpiate data structures. No functonal change per se.

QEExpressionEvaluation

API change to include specifying the number of allowed input letters. QEPlotter and QEStripChartItem have been updated to use the new QEExpressionEvaluation API.

Note: This only impacts 3rd party widgets using QEExpressionEvaluation.

qegui

Updated saveRestoreManager to use the enum to string and string to enum functions out of QEEnum.

Renamed the licence file COPYING to LICENSE for overall consistancy.

In run_qegui.bat and .run_qt_designer.batbat files: setting up environment variables do not require quotes.

r4.1.3

Release date: 27th May 2025.

general

For our local source code control, we habve migrated from from perforce to git. Many files have been updated to remove perforce style key words - no functional change per se.

EPICS Qt now has a read-only options. This can be used to provide a gui interface (perhaps for training or testing) without the possibility of inadvertantly writing to a critical PV.

qeframework

QECaClient/QEPvaClient

These have been updated to handle QEVectorVariants when writing CA array data, and also handle QStringList when writing PVA data.

Updated to avoid segment faults on shutdown, also bring CA and PVA client managers into alignment (credit Yang Zhenghan).

QESpinBox

Added autoScale property to allow auto scaling to be disabled. Based on idea from Christian Notthoff, ANU.

QEAnalogIndicator/QEAnalogProhressBar

Added animationTime property to provide a progress bar/meter animation capability. The new poroprty defaults to 0.0 which implies instantaneous, i.e. no animation. Based on idea from Christian Notthoff, ANU.

QCaObject

The getStringValue() method now takes a QE::ArrayActions parameter to control how strings were accessed - it default to QE::Index.
The previous implicit default oe QE::Ascii did not work if the PV was itself an array of strings.

Added a getIsMetaDataUpdate() method to indicate if an update update is the first/meta data update.

Updated applicable widgets to use this common method to determine if an update is the first update rather than each managing their own isFirtUpdate flag.

QEComment

This is a new widget that allowd a comment to be embedded within a ui form using the comment property.

QEExitButton

This new widget, inspired by edm, allows the form or the whole application to be closed by clicking on a button. The exitProgram property controls which type of exist is performed.

As well as various equality tests, this widget now has a LookUp option is the condition property. When selected, the widget will use the input value to select from one of the values specified in the lookupValues property.

QEPvLoadSave

Updated to hande knock-on effects of from using vector variants in the CA client. It now saves uchar arrays as numbers, as oppoed to characters.

Improved the summary format and include qe, ne and n/a qualifiers (as opposed to just 3 numbers)

Compare arrays (live and saved) correctly and consistantly. Changed the array format, e.g. from “<< 36 element array >>” to “<< array[36] >>”.

Overall better error reporting.

QEPvLoadSave and QEPvProperties

Updated context menus to cater for array PVs.

QESelector

Updated to alway honour the source proerty when set to SourceFile.

QEGenericEdit/QELineEdit

Restore writeNow call for DropToTextAndWrite option,

QESimpleShape

Allow independent main and edge control regarding use of style colours. Ths is done using new edgeUseStyleAlarmColours property.

QENumericEdit

Now displays the write forbidden cursor (e.g. when in read-olny mode).

QEWidget

Update applicable methods to take a const QCaAlarmInfo parameter.

QEFormStateChange

Brought the widget’s paint method and designer icon .png file into alignment.

qegui

The only signifcant change is the introduction of a read-only option. Use either the command line option –read_only or set the environment varaibel QE_READ_ONLY=”1”

Also updated the EPICS_Qt_Installer.wxs versions. Finally removed some perforce keywords if a few files.

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:

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.

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 5 16:53:01 2025


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