[kepler-dev] object manager/ksw how to

[Chad Berkley]

Hi,

I've got the object manager and the KSW creation engine working well 
enough that i think some other people can try it and give me feedback. 
It's not perfect yet, but getting close ;)  Here's the instructions if 
you want to try it out for yourself.

1) check out kepler
2) set appropriate env. vars as normal
3) make sure you have a kepler/ksw directory (it should be empty right now).
4) build the ksw library with the command:
   ant buildkswlib -DkswDir=ksw 
-DmomlFile=configs/ptolemy/configs/kepler/actorList.moml
(Note that this will eventually only have to be done when we're doing a 
new release, but right now i'm building it all dynamically.)  This might 
take a minute for kepler and all the ksw files to build.
5) make sure that your $HOME/.kepler is empty.  on linux, do a
   rm -rf ~/.kepler/*
6) edit the file configs/ptolemy/configs/kepler/basicKeplerLibrary.xml 
and uncomment the <property name="_alternativeLibraryBuilder"..> block. 
  Then comment out the <group> block at the bottom of that file.
7) delete the following ksw files (I'm not sure why they aren't working, 
but i'll figure it out...):  ksw/Clasfavor.ksw ksw/CompositeActor.ksw 
ksw/DifferentialSystem.ksw
8) ant run-dev
   the first time you run kepler, it'll take a minute to build the 
library from the ksw files.  it has to unpack and read the metadata for 
all of the ksw files.  Note that the 2nd time you start kepler, this 
should be much faster due to the fact that all of the files are getting 
cached and don't have to be unpacked and re-read again.
9) open a new graph editor and browse the library.  You should see the 
actors there.  For some reason the icons aren't loading (in the library) 
the first time kepler starts, but the 2nd time they do.  I'll have to 
figure that one out.  I also haven't imported any directors yet, so you 
won't see directors.  The system is still using the old ontology so you 
shouldn't see any change in the organization of the hierarchy.  If you 
quit kepler and restart it, you should see a pretty big gain in 
performance on startup time (although it's still not great and can be 
improved).  You'll also see on the terminal that it's getting all the 
ksw files from the cache the 2nd time and for whatever reason, the icons 
load correctly in the library.

Other bugs off the top of my head:
-The updating of a ksw file does not work yet and will throw an 
exception if you try.
-I don't currently have a repository with an lsid resolver in front of 
it working, so i haven't tried remote objects.  theoretically, they 
should work, but....
-None of the current ksw's have dependency information.  They basically 
all depend on each other and the system classpath at this point.  The 
dependency mechanisms should work, but i haven't had a chance to try it 
out "for real".  Eventually, i think i'll let the authors of actors deal 
with this, as it's a manual labor PITA to do it by hand.
-The semantic annotations within the ksw actor metadata files don't do 
anything yet.  this will be implemented soon now that the OM works.

I think that's it.  let me know on irc if you need any help getting it 
going or have any questions.

thanks,
chad