JObserve

Overview

The purpose of JObserve is to produce detailed schedules for a telescope. This is done by accumulating a list of scans, or telescope, activities. This list is labeled the "Observe List" and is displayed near the center of the list editing panel.

To produce such a list, several editing operations are involved. The higher level is the manipulation of lists done by cut and paste operations or the generation and insertion of entirely new scans. Changes made to lists can generally be reversed using the Undo button on the list editor panel.

The second, lower level of editing is of the contents of a particular scan. In this editor, a copy is made of the original scan and the copy in the list is not changed until the "Done" button is pressed, either explicitly or implicitly by invoking another function. Prior to an explicit or implicit "Done" button hit the current scan editing can be aborted using the "Cancel" button. After the scan has been updated in the list, the List edit "Undo" button can remove it.

If a common change is to be made to many or all scans in a list, the Edit menu items Global edits and Block edits are useful. Calibrators within a specified distance of a selected source may be listed using the Databases menu item Find nearby Calibrator.

The current working environment of JObserve can be saved or restored for subsequent editing sessions as well as the contents of individual lists. These are saved in text files which may be edited. Observing files and reports can be generated in text files. JObserve periodically does an autosave of the environment after entries are made in the Observe List (schedule). Autosave can be controlled by command line arguments described in the Introduction; in particular, autosave can be turned off using the "-at -1" command line option.

Display

The main window of JObserve contains four parts:
  1. The menu bar for selecting major functions
  2. The current editing panel which depends on the current function.
  3. A button bar whose contents depend on the current editing panel.
  4. A status line. Informative messages use a white background, warnings use yellow and errors use red.

Most of the functions of JObserve use different panels that are displayed on the editing panel of the main window. Some functions use additional pop up windows. Whenever a panel is removed its current contents are saved unless the removal is the result of the "Cancel" button being hit.

The button bars of all panels contain a Reset and a Refresh button. The Reset button undoes all user changes made during the current display of the panel. The refresh button repaints the display and may be needed after a resize of the window if the components are not sized properly.

List editing panel

The main editing panel displays six lists: The button bar on the list edit panel contains the following buttons:

Several common list editing functions are also on the Edit menu to allow using accelerator keys. These accelerator keys as shown on the menu.

Scan editing panels

The contents of a scan may be examined and modified using the scan edit panel. The scan editor is invoked by double clicking on the list entry. The scan editor consists of a number of pages dealing with related groups of values such as source positions and observing frequencies. Navigation among these pages is done using buttons on the button bar. The contents of each page depends on the telescope and the individual panel. Note: moving amoung Scans using the SrcUp/SrcDn buttons is the equivalent of hitting the "Done" button when leaving a Scan. Edited Scans are marked as unscheduled, even if there were no changes made.

The Scan editing panel contains the following buttons on the button bar: