SZARP is developed mainly with Debian as a target distribution. Compiling on other systems, even so close to Debian as Ubuntu, can be a little tricky. Anyway, we try to release Ubuntu packages from time to time. Packages for the last SZARP version (including support for recording 10-seconds probes) are now available for Ubuntu Lucid Lynx 10.04 LTS. Installation requires just adding line deb http://newterm.pl/debian lucid main non-free to your repositories list. Then you can install SZARP packages using your favourite package managing software.
The best things about SZARP are it's historical data analyse possibilities. Until know, these possibilities where limited to 10-minutes resolution. It's usually sufficient for main SZARP applications, which are slow-reactintg heating systems, but it became an important gap between functionality of SZARP and other SCADA systems. But last unstable versions contain working (usually...) implementation of saving and displaying probes with 10-seconds resolution.
New stable version of SZARP - 3.1.406 - was released. New in this version:
- Important bug fixes, including fixing problems with running line daemons (device drivers) by parcook process.
- Automatically generated documentation for all SZARP device drivers.
- New setdmn driver for setting value of parameter from network, along with graphical client - setter. This funcionality could be obtained by "glueing" previously existing SZARP modules, but new implementation is simpler and more robust.
- Import/export of defined draws set in draw3 program. User-defined sets of parameters can be exported to file and exchanged with other users/installations.
- New edit as new function in draw3 program, allowing to easly create defined draws set based on existing one.
- Optimizer for Lua parameters. Lua gives great flexibility in creating defined parameters, but Lua-based parameters can be slow to calulate - we mean slow by SZARP standards, so the user can sometimes even notice process of calculating/drawing parameters. The new code understands quite a large subset of Lua language, including calls for SZAR-specific functions. Most parameters can be parsed to "compiled" form and then calculated even faster then traditional SZARP RPN-based parameters. If parameter is to complicated to being understood by optimizer, it is passed to Lua interpreter to calculate. This new feature makes SZARP even faster in analyzing historical data.
Starting from today SZARP uses Git as a source version control. The reasons for change are likely similar as for other projects that move from centralized SCM systems like CVS/SVN to distributed and more feature-rich like Git/Baazar/Mercurial. Git was chosen for it's stability, maturity, speed and extensive branching/merging capabilities.
Project still uses SourceForge, you can get source code using command like:
git clone git://szarp.git.sourceforge.net/gitroot/szarp/szarp
There were over 30 commits into SZARP repository in January. In previous month large parts of draw3 program code was rewritten in order to make code simpler to manage, which introduced quite a few bugs, so we are holding 'stable' release for a moment, to make sure all of them are removed. The major functional change was improving communication with DDE-enabled Windows applications.
Major SZARP changes in December include code refactoring of draw3 program and few new applications added. Details follows:
- Major code refactoring of draw3 program, changes introduced quite a few bugs, most of them was hopefully resolved. Separate thread for saving cache to disk was removed. Correct icons where added to multiple dialog windows within application.
- Parameter value on dark blue background in draw3 program was pourly visible on some displays, background color is a little lighter now.
SZARP stable and unstable repositories have been upgraded to version 3.1.214 and 3.1.212. Most important changes include new way of handling user reports in Reporter3 application.
All changes and fixes from version 3.1.1
Most important changes from version 3.1.97 include:
- Bug fixes and improvements in kontroler3 program, added sound playing on alarm.
- Multiple bug fixes in Modbus RTU driver (timing synchronization); added support for BCD encoded values.
- Added support for different word order in float values in Modbus TCP driver.
- Completed "antialiasing style" draws displaying; it is more suitable for high resolution displays; it also should have less memory usage, but can be slower on some computers. This mode is now default under both Linux and Windows.
To connect to Linux SZARP server from Windows desktop in the same local network, X-terminal emulator can be used. The most popular choice is free X.Org server from Cygwin package. xorg-setup.exe file available for download from SZARP project page contains GUI installer for setting up X server IP address and is stripped from all unnecessary files, resulting in only 6MB installer size.
It can be used also for other purposes, not only related with SZARP.
English
Polski