GDA Developer Guide

This is the Generic Data Acquisition (GDA) Developer Guide.

GDA is an open source project providing a configurable platform for running experiments on synchrotron and neutron beamlines.

The Developer Guide’s companion document the GDA User Guide is available here.

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Developer Guide contents:

• 1. About this document
  • 1.1. Introduction
  • 1.2. GDA single-point-of-truth
  • 1.3. External links to source code documentation
  • 1.4. Obtaining and updating the documentation source
  • 1.5. Building the GDA Developer and User Guides at Diamond
  • 1.6. Adding a new section to the document
  • 1.7. Creating content in markdown
  • 1.8. Use of custom CSS
  • 1.9. Using Visual Paradigm
  • 1.10. Auto generation of Class and Sequence diagrams
  • 1.11. Documentation Makefile and Scripts
  • 1.12. Python Scripts autodoc
  • 1.13. UML Diagram Notation
• 2. Introduction to the GDA
  • 2.1. Aims of the framework
  • 2.2. Design overview
  • 2.3. The role of GDA
  • 2.4. Major design concepts
• 3. GDA Installation
  • 3.1. Introduction
  • 3.2. Application Requirements
  • 3.3. GDA Configuration
  • 3.4. Installation
• 4. Gerrit Setup
  • 4.1. Developer Registration
  • 4.2. Standard Tasks
  • 4.3. Using Work in Progress (WIP)
  • 4.4. Using Topics for multi-repository changes
  • 4.5. FAQs about the Diamond Gerrit Configuration
• 5. GDA Start-up
  • 5.1. Overview
  • 5.2. GDA Server start-up sequence
• 6. Jython Script types
  • 6.1. Configuration
  • 6.2. Adding a Script Queue to the Configuration
  • 6.3. Linking Scripts and the GUI
• 7. Writing new Device classes in Jython and Java
  • 7.1. Introduction
  • 7.2. The Scannable interface and ScannableBase classes
  • 7.3. Description of the Scannable properties and relations between them
  • 7.4. Ensuring Correct Scan Behavior from Scannables
  • 7.5. Add a new device to the server
  • 7.6. Examples of other Scannable classes and tests in GDA
  • 7.7. Demonstrate use of Scannable in terminal
• 8. Client GUI development
  • 8.1. Introduction
  • 8.2. Client-Server Interaction
  • 8.3. The Experiment Perspective
• 9. Remoting
  • 9.1. RMI
  • 9.2. Event forwarding
  • 9.3. Finders and Factories
  • 9.4. Exporting over RMI
• 10. GDA Configuration
  • 10.1. Beamline Configuration Service
  • 10.2. Typical configuration directory
  • 10.3. Spring configuration
  • 10.4. Logging
  • 10.5. Recording Jython terminal output
  • 10.6. Java Properties and Customising the GDA
  • 10.7. Metadata
  • 10.8. Role-Based Access Control
  • 10.9. Memory configuration
• 11. User Messages
• 12. Integrating EPICS in GDA
  • 12.1. Configure JCA
  • 12.2. Fastest method to get/put in a script
  • 12.3. More performant method to get/put in a script
  • 12.4. Using CAClient to make a Scannable
  • 12.5. Access EPICS in Java
  • 12.6. A General Purpose Class EpicsScannable
  • 12.7. Particular device classes in GDA
• 13. EPICS AreaDetector Viewer
  • 13.1. How to Add ADViewer views to a GUI when the plugins conform to the DLS AreaDetector Plugin Standard
  • 13.2. How to Add ADViewer views to a GUI when the plugins do not conform to the DLS AreaDetector Plugin Standard
  • 13.3. How to Add ADViewer views to a GUI by defining a detector specific ADController
  • 13.4. Using the gda.rcp.views.OpenViewListBoxComposite
• 14. New Scanning
  • 14.1. Introduction
  • 14.2. Devices
  • 14.3. Point Generation
  • 14.4. Defining a Scan
  • 14.5. Submitting a scan
  • 14.6. Running a scan
• 15. Malcolm
  • 15.1. MalcolmEpicsV4Connection
  • 15.2. MalcolmDevice
  • 15.3. Use of Malcolm in ‘new’ style scanning
  • 15.4. Future: Detector synchronisation with Malcolm
• 16. NeXus File Writing
  • 16.1. How NeXus files are written in scanning
  • 16.2. NeXus Template Engine
  • 16.3. Writing Diamond Default NeXus File Structure
  • 16.4. Use cases: adding items to the NeXus file
  • 16.5. Diamond Scan Collection
• 17. Build and Infrastructure
  • 17.1. Component Overview
  • 17.2. Provisioning GDA
  • 17.3. Building GDA
  • 17.4. Continuous Integration
  • 17.5. Buckminster Build (Legacy)
  • 17.6. GDA Releases and Branches
• 18. GDA Demo
  • 18.1. Basic commands
  • 18.2. Other scannables
  • 18.3. Default detectors
  • 18.4. Beam focusing
• 19. Developing GDA
  • 19.1. Commit messages
  • 19.2. Deprecation procedure
• 20. Key Patterns
  • 20.1. OSGi Classloading
  • 20.2. Queueing Scans
  • 20.3. Asynchronous Threads - The Async Class
  • 20.4. Scan Messaging Service
  • 20.5. Finding Services
  • 20.6. Scripting Framework
  • 20.7. Scannables and Monitors
  • 20.8. Devices
• 21. Writing & Running GDA Test Code
• 22. GDA on MX Beamlines
  • 22.1. Data Collection
  • 22.2. Grid Scans
  • 22.3. Line Scan
  • 22.4. MX Databases
  • 22.5. Glossary of Modes
• 23. GDA on VMXi Beamline
  • 23.1. VMXi Introduction
  • 23.2. VMXi Beamline Parameters
  • 23.3. Sample Handling
  • 23.4. Data Collection
  • 23.5. Trajectory Scans
  • 23.6. Control Objects
  • 23.7. 4°C Plates
  • 23.8. User and commissioning commands and tools
  • 23.9. Unit tests
• 24. GDA Use Cases
  • 24.1. Use Case: ‘Old’ style scanning
  • 24.2. Use Case: ‘New’ style/ Solstice
  • 24.3. Use Case: MX Data Collection
• 25. Frequently Asked Questions
  • 25.1. Materializing and Product Build FAQ
• 26. Contributors to the GDA project

• Python Code
  • How this page is auto-generated

Appendix

• Document’s Broken Links
  • about_this_document/external_links_to_source_code_documentation.md
  • about_this_document/using_visual_paradigm.md
  • build_infrastructure/buckminster_build.md
  • build_infrastructure/components.md
  • build_infrastructure/continuous_integration.md
  • config.md
  • faq/introduction.md
  • gerrit.md
  • key_patterns.md
  • malcolm.md
  • mx/mx_datacollections.md
  • nexus_file_writing/diamond_default_nexus_file_structure.md
  • nexus_file_writing/how_nexus_files_are_written_in_scanning.md
  • remoting.md
  • use_cases.md
  • vmxi/control_objects/crystalmatch_software_for_plate_imaging.md
  • about_this_document/auto_generation_of_class_and_sequence_diagrams.md
  • about_this_document/documentation_makefile_and_scripts.md
  • build_infrastructure/provisioning.md
  • How to auto-generate this page

Indices

• Index