Experiment Configuration user interface¶
Contents
Experiment Configuration widget a.k.a. expconf
is a complete interface to
define the experiment configuration. It consists of three main groups of
parameters organized in tabs:
- Measurement group
- Snapshot group
- Storage
The parameters may be modified in an arbitrary order, at any of the tabs, and will be maintained as pending to apply until either applied or reset by the user.
Important
While editing configuration in the expconf
widget, the experiment
configuration on the server may have changed, for example, another
expconf
instance applied changes or a running macro changed it
programmatically. This is notified to the user with a pop-up dialog
offering the user to either keep the local version of the experiment
configuration or to load the new configuration from the server. Be aware that
the second option will override all your local changes. It is also
possible to use the expconf
widget in slave mode and automatically
update on the server changes. You can enable/disable the “Auto update” mode
from the context menu.
This widget is usually present in sardana-aware Taurus GUIs and is also invoked
by the expconf
command in Spock.
Measurement group configuration¶
In the measurement group tab the user can:
- create or remove a measurement group
- select the active measurement group
- add or remove channels of the measurement group
- reorganize the order of the channels in the measurement group
- change configuration of a particular channel (or its controller) in the selected measurement group
- show/hide online plots for the current scan.
Experimental channel configuration¶
In the measurement group table the user can modify the following parameters of a given channel or its controller:
- enabled - include or exclude (True or False) the channel in the acquisition process.
- output - whether the channel acquisition results should be printed, for example, by the output recorder during the scan. Can be either True or False.
- shape - shape of the data
- data type - type of the data
- plot type - select the online scan plot type for the channel. Can have one of the following values: - No - no plot - Spectrum - suitable for scalar values - Image - suitable for spectrum values
- plot axes - select the abscissa (x axis) of the plot. Can be either - <idx> - scan index (point number) - <mov> - master moveable (in case of a2scan - the first motor) used in the scan - any of the scalar experimental channels used in the measurement group
- timer - channel to be used as timer. Timer controls the acqusition in terms of the integration time. Applies on the controller level.
- monitor - channel to be used as monitor. Monitor controls the acquisition in terms of the monitor counts. Applies on the controller level.
- synchronizer - the element that will synchronize the channel’s acquisition. Can be either a Trigger/Gate element or the software synchronizer. Configurable only for the timerable controllers. Applies on the controller level.
- synchronization - the synchronization type. Can be either Trigger or Gate. Configurable only for the timerable controllers. Applies on the controller level.
- conditioning - expression to evaluate on the data before displaying it
- normalization - normalization mode for the data
- nexus path - location of the data of this channel withing the NeXus tree
Show / Hide current scan plot(s)¶
The Experiment Configuration widget provides a button to show/hide plots of the current scan. When this button is checked, the values of plot type and plot axes in the channel configuration determine how many plot widgets will be spawned to show the channels involved in a scan when the scan is run.
Note
This button may in some contexts be disabled (e.g. by default on sardana-aware TaurusGUIs)
Snapshot group¶
You can configure the snapshot group with the Experiment Configuration widget. To do so, go to the Snapshot Group tab.
This tab provides the device tree browser for both Sardana elements and external devices (currently only Tango is supported as an external source). You can add elements to the snapshot group by just dragging them from the tree browser and dropping them onto the list below.
Note
Settings in this tab alter PreScanSnapshot environment variable.
Storage¶
The expconf
widget provides a way to configure the scan storage paths.
These settings are in the Storage tab.
You can specify multiple files as a comma-separated list. Remeber that the path you set is a path on Sardana server machine.
Note
Settings in this tab alter ScanFile, ScanDir and DataCompressionRank environment variables.