[kepler-dev] Build Problems

[Kenneth Evans]

Hi,

One more post on this problem.

The spaces in the path names are not the problem.  I got it working on
another computer with my original checkout into My Documents.  Thanks to Dan
Higgins who told me it is working for him in a directory with spaces in the
name.

The main problem was having the wrong build order for the ant build.  I am
not especially knowledgeable about ant.  I am much more used to working with
make files where the order is determined.  In Eclipse you don't type a
command line but check off the boxes for the targets you want.  I didn't
notice the place where you define the order (and it seems to have some
bugs). I have found little need for ant, since Eclipse builds as you type.
Oh well.  Now I know.  And it was my fault.

The other problem is getting **/build/ in the exclude list.  The directions
say to do this for ptII.  My experience (which should probably be verified)
is that (1) this gets overwritten and (2) it needs to be done in the Kepler
project, too.  If you don't so this, you get thousands of errors (and the
launcher fails).  If you do, you get 11, which is much nicer.

The problem with shutdown.bat seems to be fixed.  Thanks, Chad.

I still have problems with Vista.  The ant build fails trying to write 8
files to windows\system32.  Vista does not allow that.  (Vista is much more
locked down.)  I haven't dug in to see why that is being done.  Fortunately,
it happens after the important parts are done.  In addition Kepler and
Vergil both fail when doing File | Open on Vista, at least with JDK
1.5.0_09.  This is a Java / Vista issue.  This has been fixed in 1.6.0_02
and 1.5.0_15 (and possibly earlier -- these are the ones I have tried).  I
only have 1.6.0_02 (not 1.5.0_15) installed in Eclipse, so I have been using
that.  The installation notes say Kepler doesn't work with 1.6.  I have not
yet had any problems.  Is that still true?

Finally, thanks to help from several people, I can develop my own actors
easily.  In Eclipse it is easy to add a project to the classpath for the
Kepler or Vergil launcher.  So I can develop my actors in that project and
they are available via "Instantiate Component".  The really good part is, as
pointed out by Edward Lee, that you can run Vergil in debug mode.  Then when
you change the actor class, the changes are immediately available
(hot-swapped) into Vergil.  You just have to run the workflow again to see
the changes, not restart it and reload the workflow.  This should be a
tremendous time saver.  It also works for Kepler.  (Of course there are
limits on big a change can be, etc., etc.)

I can also save my actors loaded this way to the library.  I am not sure how
this will work if the build deletes .kepler, however.  In addition, there is
no good place to put them in the library in Kepler.  I think it needs a User
Library category, similar to what Vergil has.

Finally, thanks to all the people who helped.  This seems to be a good group
to work with.  I apologize for filling up the mailing lists with my
problems.  Hopefully some good will come of it.

	-Ken


Dr. Kenneth Evans, Jr.
Argonne National Laboratory
AES 401-B2245
9700 South Cass Avenue
Argonne, IL 60439 USA
(630)252-5110
(630)252-6123 (FAX)
 
Advanced Photon Source