20010813: Unidata McIDAS-X 7.80 MCGUI

>From:  Becky Schaffer <address@hidden>
>Organization:  Space Science and Engineering Center - Madison WI
>Keywords:  200108131916.f7DJGX111320 McIDAS MCGUI

Becky,

Sorry I couldn't get back to you earlier.  Also, I will be in Miami
tomorrow (Wednesday), the day after, and half a day after that), so
I won't be around to answer any questions.

>Dee said that you had mentioned to Russ that you'd like some feedback on
>your new McIDAS GUI.

Yes please.

>When you have something ready that we could look
>at, send me the download instructions, and we'll take a look.

Super!  Just so we are on the same page, you will need to load Unidata
McIDAS-X 7.80 on a machine and proceed from there.  My latest GUI attempt
has a number of hardwired aspects to it (for the Unidata community)
that are scheduled to evolve.  My attempt was to give users a way of
bringing up a functional McIDAS interface immediately after building
the package.

If you are game, the steps you would need to take are:

o grab my distribution and unpack script
o unpack the distribution
o build the distribution
o delete (after saving) your existing .mcidasrc file
o startup my distribution using my GUI startup
o configure the interface to point at one or more servers that can provide
  access to the datasets expected by the GUI (the hardwired part)
o play around and give me some feedback

Here goes:

machine: ftp.unidata.ucar.edu
user: umcidas
pass: XXXXXX
directory: unix/780
files: mcidasx780.tar.Z, mcinstall

- FTP the two files above to the account you are going to do the install
  in  

- change the file permissions on mcinstall to be executable:

  chmod +x mcinstall

- set McINST_ROOT to the home directory of the account you are using:

  McINST_ROOT=/home/mcidas   (or whatever)
  export McINST_ROOT

- unpack the distribution:

  ./mcinstall

- build the distribution:

  cd mcidas7.8/src
  make mcx

- install the distribution:

  make install.mcx

- make sure that your PATH and MCPATH are setup correctly.  Also define
  MCDATA to be your McIDAS working directory (~/mcidas/data for a user
  that is NOT mcidas; ~/workdata for the user that IS mcidas) and make
  $MCDATA the first MCPATH directory.  Also, set MCGUI to be the
  directory containing the newly installed McIDAS executables.

  Here is an example for the user 'becky' whose Unix shell is the Korn shell:  

  MCHOME=/home/mcidas
  MCDATA=$HOME/mcidas/data
  MCPATH=${MCDATA}:$MCHOME/data:$MCHOME/help
  MCGUI=$MCHOME/bin
  PATH=${MCGUI}:.:...            (fill in the rest of the PATH yourself)
  export MCDATA MCPATH MCGUI PATH
  
- delete .mcidasrc after saving it:

  cd ~
  mv .mcidasrc mcidasrc.bak   (or whatever)

- set the DSIPLAY environment variable if you are not the user that started
  X

  DISPLAY=blah-blah-woof-woof     (whatever)
  export DISPLAY

- start Unidata McIDAS-X 7.80:

  mcidas config

- start a session with some reasonably sized frames (like 600x800 or larger);
  make sure that you have at least 17 frames for the session

- select startup of MCGUI (radiobutton towards the bottom of the screen
  (Autostart of menu system (MCGUI|Fkey|None))

- set Save of configuration values to defaults file to YES

- click the Start button at the bottom of the GUI

Once the session and GUI are up (you will only see the mcimage window
sorrounded by the GUI; the mctext window is not started automatically),
you will need to click on the strange looking button at the top of the
GUI - the one that looks (vaguely) like two computer monitors one above
the other (just to the right of the red Z) - and set the machine(s)
that you want this session to go to for ADDE datasets supported by the
GUI.  For simplicity, you may want to set all access to
adde.unidata.ucar.edu (which is not available in the drop down list in
the selector widget) or adde.ucar.edu (which is available in the drop
down list in the selector widget).

At this point, and if the ADDE server chosen is accessible, you should
be able to exercise the various options available from the GUI.

You should notice that bubble help will appear as you move your mouse
cursor over the buttons in the main GUI.  This will give you an idea of
what the various buttons do.  One quick thing, the button with the
keyboard icon (to the left of the Z) will start three different kinds
of command and text windows:

left button   -> MCGUI command window
middle button -> SSEC McIDAS text and command window
right button  -> a GUI command window that looks like the MCGUI command window
                 but does not echo or make available through a command
                 stack the commands run by the GUI

The MCGUI command window can be made to appear by pressing the left
mouse button over the MCGUI button with the keyboard icon.  When it is
visible, it can be made invisible by once again clicking the left mouse
button over the keyboard icon button (i.e., its visibility is toggled
on and off by left mouse button clicks).  All commands run from the
MCGUI are echoed in the window and are available for rerun/edit/etc
from a command stack that is walked in the same way that is available
in the McIDAS text and command window.

What would be helpful is to note what things are bad (like the
hardwired datasets, etc.), possibly good, needed, not needed, font
selection, etc.

>Thanks!

Thank you!  Please ask questions if you run into problems.  Again,
I'll be back on Friday afternoon.

Tom
--
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* Tom Yoksas                                             UCAR Unidata Program *
* (303) 497-8642 (last resort)                                  P.O. Box 3000 *
* address@hidden                                   Boulder, CO 80307 *
* Unidata WWW Service                             http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/*
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