> RFE filed:
> https://bitbucket.org/tmidas/midas/issues/367/odb-should-be-saved-to-disk-periodically

Implemented and closed: https://bitbucket.org/tmidas/midas/issues/367/odb-should-be-saved-to-disk-periodically

Stefan

We sporadically (like once per few hours) have an error message when we access the 
history plots through mhttpd:

07:21:35.109 2023/08/03 [mhttpd,ERROR] 
[history_schema.cxx:2345:FileHistory::read_data,ERROR] Cannot read 
'/data2/history/mhf_1690890685_20230801_dc_hv.dat', read() errno 2 (No such file 
or directory)

When I log in to the machine, I properly see the file and also can access it

[meg@megon02 history]$ ls -l mhf_1690890685_20230801_dc_hv.dat
-rw-rw-r--. 1 meg meg 34176312 Aug  3 07:23 mhf_1690890685_20230801_dc_hv.dat

and I also can dump that file. 

When I try again with mhttpd, I properly see that file. 

Now in principle this is not a problem, but the error message is annoying, since this 
is the only error we get in 24 hours. I attached a 24h log to see what I mean. If this 
is an OS issue, I wonder if we should add code to retry the file access in case we get 
that error.

Anybody seen a similar thing?

Best,
Stefan

> I started to get web browser popups about "midas wants to show notifications, 
> block/allow/x". is this a glitch or a new unannounced/undocumented feature? 
> google chrome on macos. K.O.

https://bitbucket.org/tmidas/midas/commits/e101dea764c647211c560a68db7ecda1834198db

I did not consider this a significant feature to be announced here. Just a few lines 
of code. You can turn it on/off via the "Config" web page.

Stefan

> > I started to get web browser popups about "midas wants to show notifications, 
> > block/allow/x". is this a glitch or a new unannounced/undocumented feature? 
> > google chrome on macos. K.O.
> 
> https://bitbucket.org/tmidas/midas/commits/e101dea764c647211c560a68db7ecda1834198db
> 
> I did not consider this a significant feature to be announced here. Just a few lines 
> of code. You can turn it on/off via the "Config" web page.
> 
> Stefan

Now as I look at it again I realized that the config check boxes had a bug. I fixed that 
and now the disable should work correctly.

This feature was asked by some people who monitor an experiment and have the browser window 
in the background, also have sound off (large office). So desktop notifications are a good 
thing for them.

Stefan

Tonight we got another error of that type after the update:

04:17 - [mhttpd,ERROR] [history_schema.cxx:2913:FileHistory::read_data,ERROR] Cannot read 
'/data2/history/mhf_1692128214_20230815_gassystem.dat', read() errno 2 (No such file or directory)

This morning I looked at the file, and it was there:

[meg@megon02 history]$ ls -alg mhf_1692128214_20230815_gassystem.dat
-rw-rw-r--. 1 meg 4663228 Aug 17 08:50 mhf_1692128214_20230815_gassystem.dat
[meg@megon02 history]$


Stefan

> > This feature was asked by some people ...
> 
> "show notifications" popups are strongly associated with disreputable web sites (presumably to 
> push spam), it was surprising to see it from midas.
> 
> K.O.

I agree. But unlike emails (where you get lots of spam as well), you can nicely blacklist/whitelist 
desktop notifications. I suppress all of them except the one for MIDAS. This allows me to watch our 
experiment without staring on the web page all the time.

The main question here is maybe if the desktop notification should be on or off by default (for a 
fresh browser). While you always can change that via the mhttpd "Config" page, the default value is 
chosen by the system. I thought I put it to "on" so people can experience it, and then turn it off if 
they don't like. Having them off by default, most people never would notice this possibility. But I'm 
open to a discussion here.

Stefan

Still get the same error with the latest version:

3:28 [mhttpd,ERROR] [history_schema.cxx:2913:FileHistory::read_data,ERROR] Cannot read 
'/data2/history/mhf_1692391703_20230818_hv_tc.dat', read() errno 2 (No such file or directory)

Stefan

I like the idea of syntax highlighting, but your solution is just for one editor which not everybody
is using. It would be better if the editor built into mhttpd for MSL files would have the possibility.

I looked at highlighting in an HTML <textarea> tag, and found that we can do it with a 

<div contenteditable="true" style="font-family: monospace"> ... </div>

tag where we can change the color of individual words. If you translate your existing rules of syntax
highlighting into JavaScript, I'm happy to put that into the mhttpd sequencer editor. So I would need
a function which receives a MSL text, then replaces all keywords with some color tagging, like

ODBSET -> <span style="color:red">ODBSET</span>

Best,
Stefan

Indeed the ODB settings are obsolete. Now that the status page is fully dynamic 
(JavaScript), it's much more powerful to modify the status.html page directly. You 
can not only hide the buttons, but also remove the run numbers, the running time, 
and so on. This is much more flexible than steering things through the ODB.

If there is a general need for that, I can draft a "non-run" based status page, but 
it's a bit hard to make a one-fits-all. Like some might even remove the logging 
channels and the clients, but add certain things like if their slow control front-
end is running etc.

Best,
Stefan

> Hi Stefan,
> 
> > Indeed the ODB settings are obsolete.
> 
> I just applied for an account for the wiki.
> I'll try add a note regarding this change.

Please coordinate with Ben Smith at TRIUMF <bsmith@triumf.ca>, who coordinates the documentation. 


> Very true. Currently I copied the resources/midas.css into the experiment directory and appended:
> 
> #runNumberCell { display: none;}
> #runStatusStartTime { display: none;}
> #runStatusStopTime { display: none;}
> #runStatusSequencer { display: none;}
> #logChannel { display: none;}
> 
> See screenshot attached. :-)
> 
> But if feels a little clunky to copy the whole file just to add five lines.
> It might be more elegant if status.html looked for a user css file in addition
> to the default ones.

I would not go to change the CSS file. You only can hide some tables. But in a while I'm sure you
want to ADD new things, which you only can do by editing the status.html file. You don't have to
change midas/resources/status.html, but can make your own "custom status", name it differently, and
link /Custom/Default in the ODB to it. This way it does not get overwritten if you pull midas.


> The logging channels are easily removed with the css (see attachment), but it might be
> nice if the string "Run Status" table title was also configurable by css. For this
> slow control system I'd probably change it to something like "GSC Status". Again
> this is a minor thing, I could trivially do this by copying the resources/status.html
> to the experiment directory and editing it.

See above. I agree that the status.html file is a bit complicated and not so easy to understand
as the CSS file, but you can do much more by editing it.

> Lots of fun new stuff migrating from circa 2012 midas to midas-2022-05-c :-)

I always advise people to frequently pull, they benefit from the newest features and avoid the
huge amount of work to migrate from a 10 year old version.

Best,
Stefan

> I believe the original "hide run start / stop" was added specifically for ND280 GSC MIDAS. I do not know 
> why it was removed. "hide pause / resume" is still there. I will restore them. Hiding logger channel 
> section should probably be automatic of there is no /logger/channels, I can check if it works and what 
> happens if there is more than one logger channel. K.O.

Very likely it was "forgotten" when the status page was converted to a dynamic page by Shouyi Ma. Since he is 
not around any more, it's up to us to adapt status.html if needed.

Stefan

> I believe the original "hide run start / stop" was added specifically for ND280 GSC MIDAS. I do not know 
> why it was removed. "hide pause / resume" is still there. I will restore them. Hiding logger channel 
> section should probably be automatic of there is no /logger/channels, I can check if it works and what 
> happens if there is more than one logger channel. K.O.

Actually one thing is the functionality of the /Experiment/Start-Stop button in status.html, but the other is 
the warning we get from mhttpd:

[mhttpd,ERROR] [mhttpd.cxx:1957:init_mhttpd_odb,ERROR] ODB "/Experiment/Start-Stop Buttons" is obsolete, please 
delete it.

This was added by KO on Nov. 29, 2019 (commit 2366eefc). So we have to decide re-enable this feature (and 
remove the warning above), or keep it dropped and work on changes of status.hmtl.

Stefan

Thanks for reporting this problem. It has been fixed today, so the start command is only written if it's emtpy.

Stefan

> When making a link in the odb (web interface) a nice browser window pop's up. There is however not scrolling possible in the window. As a result, you can not reach a odb key if it is nested to deeply. 
> 
> Trying to type out the Link target in the field only allows for 32 characters

Thanks for reporting the bug with the pop-up not being able to scroll, I fixed that and committed the change.

I do however not understand the issue with 32 characters. The link NAME should not be more than 32 chars (which applies to all ODB keys). 
But if I try I can write more than 32 chars in the link target.

Stefan

The JavaScript function

mjsonrpc_db_save / mjonrpc_db_load

have been dropped from the API because they were not considered safe. Users 
should use now the new function

file_save_ascii()

and

file_load_ascii()

These function have the additional advantage that the file is not loaded 
directly into the ODB but goes into the JavaScript code in the browser, which 
can check or modify it before sending it to the ODB via mjsonrpc_db_paste(). 

Access of these functions is limited to <experiment>/userfiles/* where 
<experiment> is the normal MIDAS experiment directory defined by "exptab" or 
"MIDAS_DIR". This ensures that there is no access to e.g. system-level files. If 
you need to access a directory not under "userfile", us symbolic links.

These files can be combined with file_picker(), which lets you select files on 
the server interactively.

Stefan

Thanks for reporting this bug, I fixed it in the last commit.

Best,
Stefan

Since a long time we tried to convert all "static" mhttpd-generated pages to 
dynamic JavaScript. With the new history panel editor we were almost there. Now I 
committed the last missing piece - the equipment display. This is shown when you 
click on some equipment on the main status page, or if you define some Alias with 

?cmd=eqtable&eq=Trigger

This is now a dynamic display, so the values change if they change in the ODB. The 
also flash briefly in yellow to visually highlight any change. In addition, these 
pages have a unit display, and some values can be edited. This is controlled by 
following settings:

/Equipment/<name>/settings/Unit <variable>

where <name> is the name of the equipment and <variable> the variable array name 
under /Equipment/<name>/Variables/<variable>

If the unit setting is not present, just a blank column is shown.

The other setting is

/Equipment/<name>/settings/Editable 

which may contain a comma-separated string of variables which can be editied on 
the equipment page.

In addition, one can save/export the equipment in a json file, which is the same 
as a ODB save of that branch. A load or import however only loads values into the 
ODB which are under the "Editable" setting above. This allows a simple editor for 
HV values etc.

Stefan

An additional functionality has been implemented on the equipment table:

You can now select several elements by Ctrl/Shift-Click on their names, then change the 
first one. After a confirmation dialog, all selected variables are then set to the new 
value. This way one can very easily change all values to zero etc.

Stefan

The "multi" class driver takes care of that. It properly calls the SET and GET functions 
with the correct index. The code for that is in multi.cxx:105:

 device_driver(m_info->driver_input[i], CMD_GET,
               i - m_info->channel_offset_input[i],
               &m_info->var_input[i]);

The "channel_offset_input" and "channel_offset_output" store the first index of the 
channel in the overall ODB array (where inputs and outputs are staggered together), so 
the device_driver is always called with an index 0...n each for input and output, but 
with different commands CMD_GET and CMD_SET. You can take the mscbdev.cxx device driver 
as a working example.

Stefan

When you do "cmake .." in the build directory, you will see

-- MIDAS: Found ROOT version xxx in yyy

which will tell you that ROOT has been found. Then you should check if it has been turned off manually by doing\

ccmake ..

in the build directory. You will then see all the control variables. Make sure NO_ROOT is turned OFF (meaning ROOT is enabled).

Finally, make sure you start "rmlogger" and not "mlogger". Only "rmlogger" contains the ROOT binding.

Stefan