These notes describe known issues for Activator 2.6 and will become updated as we receive feedback, so please check back at tifff for new information.

• General Information
• How to get
• Package content
• Prerequisites
• Installation
• Upgrading from earlier version
• Removing software
• Known Problems and Restrictions
• Plans for the future
• Reporting Problems
• Disclaimer
• Copyrights and Licenses
• New in release 2.6

Activator is a client side desktop application to browse ASAM-ODS data using the ASAM-ODS rev. 3.x compliant service interface (RPC).

Activator can be used as frontend (aka ODS browser) for other applications, e.g. Matlab or CEA-Applications.

Activator can be used as Exporter for ODS data (Excel, netCDF). Textbased data formats (reports or e.g. cvs - Data) can be created using integrated scripting.

Activator is able to support virtual channels (server side formulas) as e.g. provided by Santorin (tm AVL) pluggin.

Activator can run on any platform (Windows, UNIX, MacOS-X) supporting Java. For easy desktop deployment Activator can run as a webstart application.

Activator is delivered with german and english language support, e.g. GUI labels, buttons, ..., tooltip texts are held in language specific property sets. Language preference is selected automatically using desktop setup information. Additional property sets to support other languages can be added on request (or by experienced users).

Operation of activator follows shopping cart programming model: During browsing thru available data sets the user may put data into the shopping cart. Later, the user does'nt buy, but sends those datasets to other applications like Excel, Uniplot, Concerto. By overwriting the binding on his desktop the user may activate other applications too or simply use Activator to export data in mat (Matlab), xls (Excel) or nc (NetCDF) format.

How to get

The software including user manual can be downloaded from tifff homepage. The package includes an evaluation license. That license provides full functionality but a dialog to remind user is poped up periodically. Without any (or expired/invalid) license a warning popup will be shown from time to time, no other restrictions. To get a production licence contact office@tifff.com and ask for licence key.

Distribution content

• Java (J2SE 1.4 or higher), for WebStart purpose (Activator deployed thru intranet HTTP server) the JRE subset is sufficient on endusers desktop
  Check java.sun.com for a java platform suitable to your operation system.
• ASAM-ODS server (e.g. Santorin or AOSJ) supporting protocol revision 3.x (3.0 is minimum requirement).
• Appropriate postprocessing applications (Office, Matlab, Uniplot, ...) to handle exported data.
• Optionally instead of WebStart the open source tool JSmooth can be used to deploy preconfigured activator software to MS-windows desktops.

can be used to install Activator directly from Web. The Java plugin has to be installed within your favorite internet browser (Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, Mozilla Firefox). When used first time some libraries (.jar) are downloaded (approx. 8 MB). Subsequent startups can be made locally. Note that a compiler (eclipse JDT) is included, and on first open of an ASAM-ODS connection application classes are created (castor) and compiled. As those classes and session settings are saved locally, access to local resources is required. The download is selfcertified, a related warning will appear befor any access to local system is made. The initial setting is "readonly": Activator will reject to make any changes to the ASAM-ODS database.

Download activator.exe and add optional components into same file directory. activator.exe already includes a public license and castor.jar. To use a personal license put the license received into working directory. If only JRE is available locally jdtcore.jar (the eclipse compiler) has to be installed too. To avoid the small overhead created by encapsulating the Java application into a windows .exe file one may use the UNIX-style like startup using activator.bat insteadof activator.sh and one may create an appropriate Desktop button.

Download activator.sh, activator.jar and activator.lic and appropriate optional Java Archives (.jars). If a suitable Java VM is not in PATH, set JAVAHOME variable by adapting activator.sh using text editor.

For hints, especially how a system administrator may prepare preconfigured activator packages for end users refer to user manual (sorry, german only).

See readme for new version, check for compatibility notes. Usually stored settings can be reused by newer versions: Start once using appropriate ODS-Login, then terminate activator and move layout.xml file from former installation into the now available ODS-Server related directory befor restarting to have previous settings available.

Remove the installation directory. Entries made in registry can be found by searching for activator. Only ASAM-ODS server access information (server name, RPC number, short name and, if required, username) is stored into registry.

• After some database update operations no automatic reload occurs to synchronize view with persistent data. User has to schedule reload operation.
• Graphics export as PDF may not include all things visible on screen.
• Maps (projections, colored, isolines) are experimental (using a modified version of free available SGT 3.0 package form NOAA).
• No visible difference between nodes pasted into workspace and nodes marked. Copy/Paste creates a new object while "Mark" creates a reference to original node. Therefor copy/paste into workspace shall be avoided as postprocessing may miss to get whole context. Use mark/release actions instead.
• DragDrop/Paste of measurement instances behaves different to Load-Action in Data editor: Load reuses measurement description available in Activator main (subsets by filtering) while pasted measurements are not filtered.
• CEA Interface: RMI connection parameters not yet editable (fixed to localhost 1099) and no attributes filter is provided. By default all attributes related to a measurement are passed to CEA.
• XML-RPC integration is experimental only. This shall be used in future (when XML-RPC enabled applications become available, e.g. Uniplot) as an alternative to RMI connection in case of external programs written in a non-RMI able programming languages, e.g. C/C++/C#. Attention: Turning on XML-RPC access to Activator disables RMI access as same port is used and therefor e.g. the collaborating Uniplot version cannot be used simultanously with Matlab. Up till now the only methods implemented are "get working set" and "get working set entry attributes". See manual for -Dserver.class option description.
• With Drag-Drop support added a treenode expand/collape action is recognized only when node was NOT selected befor action. This is a known java problem, see bugdatabase@sun. Therefor 2 clicks may be necessary to expand/collapse and/or start dragging depending on current state of node selection.
• No ODS server capability check (e.g. for feature availibility). Especially the query operators when using navigational query (getval()) are not restricted to the ones allowed by ODS 3.0 API, and getvale() request creation is not automatically disabled when server offers 3.0 capabilities only.
• Extended query not working with all releases of AVL Santorin. Cleanup expected to be included in next Santorin release. Currently activator includes overhead code to cope with some of the problems: Adding additional attributes (at least one for each element occuring in where clause), additional ODS info (name, datatype) and dummy values for syntactical operators. Furthermore Santorin configuration may be to limited for huge (more than 100 Attributes) database tables (SQL buffer size exceeded).
• ODS service failures: Not all actions are able to recover from e.g. timed out session errors.
• Tree column (usually the first column of the table) is always shown in first column after restart no matter to which position it was dragged in preceeding activator session.
• Highlight action may need to be called twice to get proper result
• Excel data export of huge amount of data may show "OutOfMemory". The POI group (apache foundation) is working on a solution which may reduce memory consumption.
• logon problems with AVL PumaOpen type of server when PROJECT parameter is required and there is no PROJECT entry field in logon frame. On first time startup one has to use startup commandline arguments to provide that entry, later startups may use stored session parameters. see documentation
• Weaknesses on creating new preconfigured webstart images: On deploy directory, URL, ... entered into form are not checked and verbosity of errormessages may fall short. Keystore is not protected, therefore be cautious when importing keys. The keys automatically created are for demo purpose only.
• No encryption of ODS password information within acx files sent to remote applications. In case sensitive environments the creation of acx (exchange) data shall be avoided if not disabled e.g. by removing the action from property set.
• Datamodels using inheritance are flattened
• When datamodel of ODS service is changed the local classes have to be removed in order to force rebuild of local classes on next logon. This has to be done manually (del *.class *.xsd)
• Using ASAM-ODS extended query where query attributes (WHERE clauses) are related weak (not part of entities on path from rootnode to target node) may provide unexpected results (depends on how the server creates SQL out of provided getValE request).
• See manual for "unexpected bahavior" when multple pathes exist (not a valid "tree") and how to handle such datamodel dependent situations.
• Not all visual properties (fonts, colors) are reset when dynamically changing look and feel.

Features to be implemented depend on user feedback. Current priorities are:

1. Enhanced editting (copy/paste whole database structures, currently only single instances are copied per DnD operation, no deep copy of structures.
2. Allowing to edit joined measurement matrix (backtracking to source)
3. Excel worksheets shall get more definable things e.g. to allow to absolute place named columns (e.g. for spreadsheet formula usage).
4. Scripting extensions to improve usability for e.g. statistical evaluations.

But quite sure stability (bugfixing, solutions for current problems and restriction) still has top level priority.

In case of failures please include loggings produced by activator. See documentation about how verbosity of logging can be increased.

No warranties for downloaded evaluation package

Using Activator for evaluation purpose is permitted. For continued use a license shall be ordered. Activator is not GPL!, but includes public licenses for some LGPL/BSD/Apache libraries (castor, js, poi, netcdf, eclipse).

Source code for those included libraries (and license agreements for open source use) can be found at

POI	http://jakarta.apache.org/poi/
ECMAScript	http://www.mozilla/org/js/
NetCDF Library	http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/packages/netcdf-java/
Graphics library (and NetCDF file viewer)	http://www.epic.noaa.gov/java
Graphics export	http://java.freehep.org/
castor	http://castor.exolab.org/
eclipse	http://www.eclipse.org

Source code is made available for noncommercial use only. There are exceptions from that rule:

• Source code for data access using activator is included in download package as an example. That code uses the general purpose remote access to activator (MatLab (tm) style) and can be taken as a starting point when adding own postprocessing applications
• Source code for internal interfaces to postprocessing applications (spreadsheet generator, netCDF generator, ...) is made available to license holder to enable tight integration of legacy postprocessing applications.

See documention for different options when integrating activator into your application.

• Improved (internal) state management.
• Model change: Reconnecting after timeout, session errors, ... now enabled, see restrictions.
• Matlab now may access (when datadescriptor hint indicates) the measurement matrix (joined from submatrices). For users: To ensure compatibility of existing scripts the datadescriptor join hint should be off when processing data thru actlink. See documentation changes regarding new/changed actlink methods.
• Additional version of Excel generator. For Excel both version (.XML and .XLS template) are available allthough .XLS (new) is the default. In oder to use the .XML version, change filebrowser to allow selection of all (instead .xls) files and select the .XML template. Support for .XML templates will be continued in future revisions but final 1.6 code will no more refer to current codebase and therefor the current formula features included with XML based template processing will be discontinued. The current prerelease allows to use local formulas (even files allthough the excel startup dialog field to enter filename disappeared), see user manual. See planned features too.
• New version of NetCDF generator no more refering to AopWeb codebase.
• Startup parameter model.keepdirectref to change handling of multiple pathes in datamodel relationsships, see manual for explanation.
• Distribution cleanup, aop2 package removed, xerces revision upgrade
• Attention: The package now unpacks into activator-1_6 (instead of filling current working directory)
• The toolbar button "remove all queryfragments" got new meaning: "disable all fragments"
• Some more ODS type icons added
• Showing n:m related instances too. Attention:Runtime classes are incompatible, remove jdmXXX/*.classes and jdmXXX/*.xsd when upgrading from earlier revision of activator, remove .java, .class and .xsd files.
• Allowing to AND/OR the simple query expression (additionally to IGNORE). Attention:Stored serttings can be reused from earlies revision but all query parts are disabled. Exit activator once befor reenabling the fragments.
• Two predefined logging modes (Console normal and detailed) and one configurable one using property file.
• Fix against popups appearing at wrong place
• Uniplot/NetCDF: Using extra option (instead of title) to identify target datetime format.
• Uniplot missing_value didnt allow Double.NaN: attribute now omitted for Float and Double (the value nevertheless is IEEE NaN)
• Using the JSmooth package a .exe files may be created for jumpstart by other members in a group.
• Licensing simplified (no startup editting): Just copy the file received into activator's directory using name "activator.lic". The download package includes an evaluation license.

• Redesign of main window. Navigation and shopping basked now separated into split pane, the former multiple activator windows to show other parts of datamodel are tabs in tabbed pane now.
  Warning:All settings (options and views) are incompatible to previous 1.x release. Activator shall be installed into new directory or all jdmxxx subdirectories have to be removed.
• Matlab now connects using RMI.
• Improved commandline mode for batch (GUI-less) usage of activator (multiple measurements allowed).
• Invalid values (ASAM ODS: Flags for values) can be highlighted using definable cell style
• Tree nodes can be restored now from workspace noded e.g. after reloading stored shopping basket content
• Activator now exits on "Close", to reenter logon window on last window closed (former behavior) the property relogon can be set to true on startup.
• Default for type icon display is "on"
• Virtual rootnode (allows to show e.g. all physical dimensions in tree)
• Access to all attributes related to channels
• Uniplot support improved (long_name, novalue, title). RESTRICTION: C_format for floating point number formatting depends on named property number.formathint to identify the attribute within quantities. If the attribute is called "GroFormatDef" a DDDD.DD format (Cobol style) is converted to C-style.
• Added autoscroll of treeview (on select, on expand)
• Activating NetCDF (Uniplot) viewer when first file (instead of last) is finished,
• Changes to NetCDF mapping (datatypes, datetime, ...)
• Removed service naming conflicts, layout now always named "layout.xml"
• New query structure, allows to use "ODS extended query" interface.
• Session parameters now stored into NetCDF (for uniplot)
• Expanding all workspace entries into tree view enabled now.
• RPC request timeout and result set size limit now runtime changable using setting parameters.
• Possibility to pick parameter lists from other settings.
• Possibility to indicate which fragments shall be used by navigational query.
• Allow to create activator .exe files (for Windows users) on Linux/UNIX too (former release required to use windows to deploy a windows application)
• Column add dialog now initially larger and resizeable
• Services to which connection fails are removed from registry when connection to an other service is successfull
• Scripting changed. Interface is now very similar to Matlab style.
• Action to clean workspace added (shortcut for "select all and release")

• Automated segmentation to create continuation sheets when Excel row and or columns ranges would be exceeded.
• Scripting example added (example shows how .csv style files can be created)
• Query fragments not applicable to current state are shaded
• More choices to handle navigation query result (replace/merge/cancel). The default choice used when warnings option is off can be adjusted using -Dquery.davdefault option (0..2)
• A generator logging facility (currently only with Excel) to show events on screen can be activated using -Dgenlog=true startup option
• NetCDF C_format attribute got trailing null character added (requested by Uniplot).
• String - Columns now passed to NetCDF/Uniplot as character arrays
• ncBrowse, the simple netCDF file viewer is no more included in activator distribution. Download from ncBrowse homepage if required.
• JMat addon migrated to JMathPlot, a successor of open source JMat. As JMat provides the fasted way to create simple x-y plots which be saved as PNG files the feature is still included. See ncBrowse for other way to create simple graphs.
  Warning:When using modified startup commands (activator.bat): Ensure jmat.jar is replaced by jmathplot.jar;jdom.jar
• Warning:The session history changed it's location from com.tifff.prefs.xml to com.tifff.activator.prefs.xml. This applies to history only!, saved settings and views are untouched. If history is essential to be preserved from previous revision one has to do the renaming within registry (windows) or within $HOME/.java (UNIX) befor starting activator.
• Internal error when using trimmed schema fixed
• Santorin specific PROJECT handling added again (got lost)
• Unavailable services no more removed from service list. Will be replaced by check for available repositories (jdmxxx) in future.
• The select type which is used by extended query (getValE) as target element type is now associated to the tab used, switching the tab changes query target.
• Nodes may become renamed. Attention: It is up to the server used to accept or reject rename attempt. Activator neither checks for name duplicates nor checks for permissions.
• Copy/Paste/Merge currently only to change reference attributes when property model.ideditable is on. Example use e.g. to change unit in a measured quantity:
  Select the measured quantity to be changed into workspace and ensure that unitId attribute is visible (aka prepare for editting),
  open the units (e.g. starting with physical dimensions folder as root) and select the unit to be inserted using Copy in nodes context menu,
  change back to the tab where the quantity is shown, click on unitId value (green border) and use Paste in values context menu
  Finally use Commit in changed instances (row) context menu.
  Warning:Any other use of structure editting actions may provide "NOT YET IMPLEMENTED" warning box popup.
• Attributes may be specified qualified (e.g. Messung.iName) to ensure uniqueness (using unqualified names is still allowed)
• Fix against the tree sort problem. Sorry for not recognizing problem earlier.

New in release 2.2

• Rename of views (tab's) supported
• Repository named according session name
  Warning:To preserve layouts move layout.xml from version 2.x repository into new repository after first startup. The former jdmxxx directories may be removed then. Class files shall NOT be moved!.
• Webstart problem (Logon windows reopens on cancel) fixed and allowing username to be changed. It is now users responsibility to ensure compatible datamodels when using different ODS user names within same session name.
• Allowing to create multiple activator repositories for same ODS service. To enforce new name input use CTRL modifier key when clicking "connect", to remove entry from history use CTRL modifier on "cancel" button. The underlying directory is NOT removed and can be reused by readding a suitable name.
• Redesigned view update model when set of loaded data instances changes
• Order of query fragment shown in header changed to avoid display of fragments not relevant for next query.
• Filter toolbar button now shows all fragments to make "removal" better accessible
• Lot of minor fixes, e.g. improved handling when switching select type or default filter in statusbar.
• The navigational query now uses logically OR when same attributes is used multiple time together with the "=" (equals) query operator by repeating request automatically. Only one attribute may appear multiple times.
• Enhanced measured data editor allowing multiple measurements within one frame, preserving layout infos (size, position, selectable set of columns), allowing value flags editting, drag-drop support, ... The editor can be used without ODS server (offline mode) to edit file data.
  Attention Activator no more expands implicit channels automatically. Therefore active clients (e.g. Matlab) have to request expanded values for implicit channels. See Manual for those new methods. No change for passive clients (e.g. Excel).
• New dialogs for viewing/editting data records (application element instances).
• Enhanced (not yet perfect, see restrictions) cut/copy/paste support to create/alter instances

New in release 2.3

• Using POI (Excel spreadsheed generator) version 2.5.1 now. Attention: poi library requires a patch in order to work. The problem has been reported to apache bug database. The library is modified and includes a patch against that problem. Furthermore the library can be signed now (required for WebStart) while using original library in webstart fails.
• Reusing descriptors and data sets loaded. This allows e.g. to create excel data sheets out of data changed by internal measured data editor. Befor each generator action picked data out of database instead of using already loaded data.
• Using another work around for treetable problem (treenode select not working when dragdrop is enabled) now, see bug id=4785413 reported from java bugdatabase.
• There is now the possibility to evaluate arithmetic expressions e.g. to add virtual channels locally to a measurement matrix. Any submatrix can be accessed in matrix (evaluation called once per submatrix) mode or in single row mode (evaluation called for each row allowing nonindexed simple expressions). Formulas may include references to application attributes.
• Readonly mode: A startup option -Dreadonly=true inhibits any write to database (late inhibit, e.g. editting is still possible, only committing changes is disabled).

• Optional packages: All extra libraries (netcdf for UniPlot, poi for Excel, js for Scripting, ... ) are no more bundled into activator, nevertheless the hooks are included. In order to use features marked optional the libraries have to be downloaded separatly.
• For MS Windows users a activator.exe may allow simpler installation. If additional packages shall be used: They are enabled by putting the appropriate .jar into exe's file directory.
• Optional usage of eclipse JDT: This allows to run activator using JRE (JDK no more mandatory). Attention: To create Microsoft Windows (.exe) or webstart applications out of running activator the JDK (jar, jarsigner) is still required.
• The optional component CeaActivator.jar can be used as an ASAM-CEA component. By adding that component to a CEA application Activator can be used as a CEA compliant data provider.
• Concerto action no more included by default.
• The JMathPlot package is replaced now by SGT, an open source implementation from NOAA/EPIC (Donald Denbo). Beside printing the plot pages can be exported using diffent graphics formats (using freehep package). The map display (Weighted means or delaunay triangulation) is pure experimental and mostly inoperational.
• Onlinehelp added (not yet complete).

• Added user input history for all action (aka postprocessing) dialogs.
• Enhanced data collection for chart package: It is now possible to collect data into single arrays out of multible measurements, e.g. sampling every n'th point or creating map data out of measurments each holding just one curve.
• SGT plot package has been extended to include triangulation and gradient colored isoline plot (avoiding rastering).
• Attribute list added to query editor pane to allow easier dragndrop setup of extended querries.
• Querries are cloned when creating new view out of existing one.
• Logging now online configurable at component level (see help toolbar button). Explizit configuration may still be used for initial values and/or file based logging.

• Compiles using jdk1.5
• Upgraded to relaxer 1.1 and castor 0.9.7 (by that reason)

Last updated 20070225