Changelog for NICOS 2

Release 2.1.2

• Fixed not being able to run another manualscan after stopping a manualscan.
• Fixed error in “history()” when calling with actual timestamps.
• Fixed glitches in cache handling of expired values when restarting the cache server.
• The cache now re-loads database keys from disk even if not restarted on the same day.
• Fixed problem with cache history query not returning all requested values.
• Fixed simulation mode not working with no cache configured.

Release 2.1.1 (2012-03-22)

• Fixed an elog bug that caused elog to quit on Unicode errors.
• Fixed calling “gauss()” and “poly()” with column names.
• Report simulated runtime for code run with “Simulate()”.
• Fixed namespaces used in “Run()”, so that globals can be accessed from functions defined in user scripts.
• Fixed simulating and timing devices with a ramp parameter.
• Made the cache robust against corrupted save files on disk.
• Fixed the “create_nicosconf” script when no TACO environment is found.
• Fixed a bug in simulation mode that would cause exceptions when wait()ing for fixed devices.

Release 2.1.0 (2012-03-14)

• Introduced the “Measurable.duringMeasureHook()” and “Measurable.save()/doSave()” methods.
• Added “Experiment.scripts” parameter that stores the code of the currently executed script.
• Added easy access control using the “requires()” decorator. Added “AccessError” and “Session.checkAccess()” APIs.
• Added the three-parameter form of “adjust()” that allows to adjust to some other than the current position.
• Added automatic retry of Taco calls with the new “tacotries” parameter of TacoDevice objects.
• Added the “extended” entry to setup files, for future use.
• The “waitForStatus()” utility function now supports timeout and handling error states.
• The “center()” and “checkoffset()” user commands now can take an “ycol” keyword that determines which data column is used for fitting.
• Added “calpos()”, “pos()” and “rp()” commands for triple-axis spectrometers.
• Renamed the “name” setup entry to “description” to match its function.
• Taco motors now can read the absolute limits from the Taco device.
• Removed “setPosition()” from abstract Axis. Moved “setPosition()” from abstract Motor to abstract Coder.
• Changed the “FRMDetector” class to have lists of monitor and counter channels as adevs. Presets are either “t” or “monX” or “ctrX”, where X is the number of the monitor/counter channel.
• Added suggestion of possible commands when misspelled on the console.
• The TAS commands are not included automatically in setups anymore.
• Added “coordinates” parameter to slits to select the coordinate convention for right/left, bottom/top axes.
• Removed first (“converter”) argument from parameter type “oneof”.
• Added a “FinishExperiment()” user command.
• Added “poll” and “neverpoll” parameters to the Poller object.
• When calling “stop()” without devices, stop all devices in parallel.
• Added “localcontact” parameter for experiment.
• The “pollinterval” parameter of readables can now be None, to disable polling.
• The Axis class now has a “jitter” parameter that can account for jitter in the movement, e.g. due to airpads.
• Added a “RemoveSetup” command that re-loads everything except for the given setups.
• Creating the standard detectors/envlist is now retried every time the attribute is accessed from the experiment.
• With option “-c”, the NICOS console does not autocreate devices.
• Add “dataroot” parameter for experiment device, which configures actual data root path.
• When parameters in configuration are changed, they are now preferred on reload to the cached values.
• Temperature controller now respects ramping time for timeout, and allows to choose not to raise on timing out.
• Added TAS commands to calculate powder rays and spurion positions.
• Added new “appendscan()” command to quickly append to the last scan.
• Fixed devices now don’t raise an exception on moving, but only warn that they will not move.
• New command: “Remember()”.
• Simplified TACO temperature classes: the temperature control device does not have “sample” and “control” channel properties anymore.

Release 2.0.1

• In “ImageStorage”, made sure the data file isn’t overwritten unless explicitly allowed.
• Fixed the “steps” parameter of IPC coders.
• Fixed nicos.conf not being read. Prepend PYTHONPATH entries to sys.path instead of appending.
• Fixed TAS wavevectors to always move in inverse angstroms.
• Fixed data file counting bug: when two sessions were writing data files, they could use the same counter and try to write the same file.
• The Axis now correctly resets the error state on multiple positioning tries.

Release 2.0.0 (2012-01-11)

• Initial release.