CS Studio Perspectives

How to create a new display perspective

1. Open fresh "OPI Runtime" perspective: Window/Open Perspective/Other/OPI Runtime. "Reset" if it was already active.
2. Open views, position them as desired.
3. Invoke "Save As" context menu on the perspective.

You can now close the perspective, later re-open it, or switch between perspectives.

After closing or moving views, either
a) "Reset" the perspective to revert to the original layout
b) Use "Save As" with a new name for a new perspective, or under the same name to overwrite the existing perspective.

Perspective preferences:

1. Creating a OPI Runtime perspective with the default part stacks
   The preference option to "Show OPI Runtime Stacks" adds one placeholder view in each part stack, which helps positioning views in those stacks. Remember, however, to close the placeholder views when done!

org.csstudio.opibuilder/show_opi_runtime_stacks=true

2. Setting the folder for saving and reading perspectives

Whenever a perspective is saved with the save as command, this will create a <perspective_name>.xmi file in the specified save folder. On startup cs-studio will load all the perspectives available in the load perspective folder, these perspectives will then be available in the perspective toolbar/open perspective editor.

Layout of the "OPI Runtime" Perspective

The OPI Runtime perspective has part stacks named CENTER, TOP, BOTTOM, LEFT, RIGHT which are positioned as one would guess. When an action is configured to open an *.opi to the "left", it will be placed in the LEFT part stack.

When these part stacks are empty, they are invisible and it is thus impossible to manually move displays into them. A display can be positioned "left" from the center, but the actual LEFT part stack would be even further to the left.

Known Issues

https://github.com/ControlSystemStudio/cs-studio/issues/1707

Multiple Windows

If you want displays to be outside of the original workbench window, there are three options:

1. 'Detach' by dragging it outside of the workbench. Detached windows belong to the current perspective of their origin window. They open/close with perspective changes.

2. Open display in new workbench (or move to another existing workbench). Each workbench has its own perspective.

3. Standalone Window (shell) Not part of any perspective, will not be persisted over application restarts.