1. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 1 VBA & Process Variables  System Overview  Setup (What installations are needed)  What are Process Variables and what are they good for.  How do we get data in a cell.  Tools  Tips & Tricks

2. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 2 Disclaimer The use of dynamic data exchange to access process variable related to the DZero experiment is restricted. You will need a good reason to be included on the list. The IP address of the machine that is running the application must be added to a master list maintained by Stuart Fuess.

3. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 3 Why is Access Restricted  Mostly used to read information for equipment in the Experiment.  Can be made to write to equipment. This may be a simple Reset signal or complex sequence, that is the danger.  Ops, I turned off the experiment.

4. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 4 VME DZero System IO Host 1553 RM IOC Ethernet 1553 BLS PS

5. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 5 IO System Overview  What is Channel Access?  A connection channel between a host machine and an IO device.

6. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 6 IO System Overview  What is EPICS?  Experimental Physics and Industrial Control System EPICS is a set of software tools and applications which provide a software infrastructure for use in building distributed control systems to operate devices such as Particle Accelerators, Large Experiments and major Telescopes. Such distributed control systems typically comprise tens or even hundreds of computers, networked together to allow communication between them and to provide control and feedback of the various parts of the device from a central control room, or even remotely over the internet. EPICS uses Client/Server and Publish/Subscribe techniques to communicate between the various computers. Most servers (called Input/Output Controllers or IOCs) perform real-world I/O and local control tasks, and publish this information to clients using the Channel Access (CA) network protocol. CA is specially designed for the kind of high bandwidth, soft real-time networking applications that EPICS is used for, and is one reason why it can be used to build a control system comprising hundreds of computers.

7. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 7 What Needs to be Installed  Channel Access  Environment Variables  Python

8. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 8 Where to find  Look here for installation information. d0server6/projects/d0epics/caDDE/CaD DE.htm d0server6/projects/onl_apps

9. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 9 Adding Environment Variable  Add the EPICS_CA_ADDR_LIST to your System Properties. In the advanced section of System Properties/Environment Variables Add as many IP’s as needed separated by a space.

10. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 10 What is a Process Variable  Object link to communicate with IO  Objects have several attributes Example: CALN_LVCB_00_1/7VA.DESC Description of BLS power supply in location 00_1 of the North Calorimeter 7V output. CALN_LVCB_00_1/7VA.ESLO Scaling Factor for BLS power supply in location 00_1 of the North Calorimeter 7V output CALN_LVCB_00_1/7VA.EGU Engineering Units for BLS power supply in location 00_1 of the North Calorimeter 7V output

11. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 11 Getting Data in a Cell  The magic, once CaDDE has been installed, is a one-liner.  Put this in the cell =CaDDE|Get!'CALN_CMCP_PA00/LB.' =VALUE(CaDDE|Get!'CALN_CMCP_PA00/LB.')  Value() will be needed if you do any math  Python scripts can be used to call IO device using channel access drivers.

12. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 12 Starting the CaDDE  You will be asked to start the Channel Access DDE and a window will start that lists all the cell PV’s that are in use.  Data will dynamically appear in the cell with no further intervention.

13. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 13 BLS GUI

14. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 14 BLS GUI Has a ComboBox Has a Transparent Picture Has a Camera Object Has Buttons

15. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 15 Open BLS_PS_GUI.xls  Start the sheet to see some of the components.

16. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 16 BLS Information

17. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 17 Preamp PS

18. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 18 BLS Crate Temperatures

19. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 19 Platform RMI Status

20. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 20 Silicon Tracker PS

21. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 21 Shell Calls  VBA can call an external process For example a DOS batch process can be called passing parameters to it from VBA ret = Shell("c:\data\argument.bat " + arg1 + " " + arg2 + " " + arg3, 1) The DOS process can call a Python script passing parameters to it. BOnOff.py %1 %2 The Python script executes using values sent from the spread sheet.

22. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 22 Python doing a Channel Access

23. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 23 PVNG

24. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 24 Detector

25. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 25 Type

26. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 26 Location

27. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 27 Attribute

28. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 28 Tools  ConTEXT http://www.fixedsys.com/context/  Visustin http://www.aivosto.com/visustin.html

29. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 29 Tips & Tricks  Tips  Transparent GIFs  Conditional Formatting  Long Binary Conversion  ComboBox 101  Camera

30. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 30 Pictures with Holes  Make a GIF with transparent background.  Use Paint Shop Pro

31. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 31 Tips  Moving to the end of a row or column  Split screen  Fill down  Copy/Paste special  Reference (relative and absolute)

32. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 32 Conditional Formatting  Cells can be have formats that change according to

33. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 33 Long Binary Conversion  May need to convert large HEX numbers to Binary  HEX2BIN works only to 1FF  Take small pieces of the HEX value.

34. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 34 ComboBox 101  Make a list and name it  Place a ComboBox on a sheet  Add ListFillRange to the ComboBox object.

35. EEDEED Tuesday, May 18, 2004 35 Camera  Open Tools/Customize/Commands Tools tab.  Drag the Camera to your favorite Tool Bar.  Mark and area and click the camera.  Place the image on a sheet.  It is live and sizeable.