Dumping QC layout to config file

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1

Dear Experts,
Is there a way for dumping the created QC layout to some kind of config file?
I guess they are stored somehow internally and it would be very useful to have the ability to export/import from the config file also on the user side. The click-and-drag interface is very nice for prototyping but it’s not the best option for production.

Cheers,
Sebastian

2

Hi @sbysiak ,

Thank you for your request!

Would you mind describing a little bit more into detail how would you use the proposed feature? We had something similar requested for the purpose of migrating from one machine to another but from what I understand this is not the case for you.

https://alice.its.cern.ch/jira/browse/OGUI-890

Allowing users to modify configuration files can easily lead to issues so I would like to better understand the use case before going forward with the request.

Thank you,
George

3

Thank you for fast reply and pointing out the jira ticket. You are right, we are not interested in migrating.
Our main purposes are similar to what was mention by Barth as Run2 use cases in OGUI-890:

  1. backup
  2. “parameterized” large layouts, we have for instance 200 of histos called “Amplitude_channelXXX”, adding them 1-by-1 is a little pain
    • modification of above in case of change of naming scheme
    • copying such layout/tab but with “Time” instead of “Amplitude” would also be much faster in text config than GUI
4

Dear all,

I also think, that the possibility to edit a layout in a simple text-based version would be very helpful. One more usecase, more for development and testing: Within the TPC team, we often call the same tasks differently, depending on where they are running, e.g. Clusters for local testing and Clusters_EPN for testing on the EPNs. In this way, we can use both kinds of testing at the same time, and we are always sure, which output to look at. This could also be relevant in future, when there is a production version running during data taking, and at the same time a QC detector team wants to test an updated version.

@sbysiak : concerning the usage of many similar histograms, we have started to use Canvases. In case of the TPC, many things we look at on the level of readout chambers (ROCs) and we have 72 of them. So we put all in one Canvas. In the QCG, you can access a single histogram on a canvas in a magnified view by double clicking directly left of the y axis. The same way you get back to the overview. Maybe this at least can help for the time being, maybe it could also for you be a solution in general.

You can find an example going to https://qcg-test.cern.ch/?page=objectTree in qc/TPC/MO/Clusters/c_ROCs_NClusters_2D

Cheers,
Stefan

5

Thank you all for providing your use cases. This is very important feedback! I will now take it under consideration.

On another note, @sheckel , you can share objects via the full page object view. e.g https://qcg-test.cern.ch/?page=objectView&objectName=qc/TPC/MO/Clusters/c_ROCs_NClusters_2D

This view can be accessed via clicking the the top right corner icon from every plot, including the objects with saved drawing options in the layouts.
If you click on the icon from the layout view, the object will be plotted and shared with its corresponding drawing options

6

Thanks, George, for considering this feature and for your additional info. I didn’t know, that in the full page view even the layout drawing options are preseved, this is very useful!

7

@sheckel, thank you for the comment and suggestion, however we would prefer to have the ability to analyze also these histos one-by-one, for instance using TrendingTask, that’s why putting them on one canvas is not the option for us.

8

Hi @sbysiak, we have the same issue, but actually it is possible to loop over all histograms of one canvas and perform the trending for each. We are working on an implementation for the TPC. If you are interested, I can keep you posted (maybe somewhere else, as here we are getting a bit OT…).