CEI Shell Launcher

This tool is used to graphically invoke site/user defined ceishell networks.  Network configurations are described by a site and/or user server configuration files.  The files describe one or more named configurations, an optional GUI per configuration, and a set of launch commands per configuration.

The site-wide server configuration file is named:

$CEI_HOME/ensight{version}/site_preferences/site_server_configs.py

The user-specific server configuration file is named:

user_server_configs.py

and is found in the user's ensight{version} resource directory.

The configuration files contain a single Python list named 'config'. The list contains one or more dicts where each dict describes a server

configuration.  See the file:

$CEI_HOME/ensight{version}/site_preferences/example_server_configs.py

for an example of how to construct a valid server configuration file.

Each dict must contain two items: 'server_name' and 'commands'.  It may also contain two optional items: 'gui' and 'connect_url'.

The 'server_name' item in the dict has a string as its value.  The string is the name that will appear in the GUI.

The 'commands' item has a list as its value.  The list is composed of lists of commands.  Command lists can be tagged as to be executed by the Python interpreter or as shell commands to be executed via the system() function call.  Multiple instances of each command lists can occur in any order.  Each command must succeed for the following ones to execute.

The optional 'gui' item has a list of lists as its value.  The values collectively describe a single dialog composed of one or more widgets. Each list in the list describes a GUI widget as implemented by the qtgenericdlg.py file.  Search $CEI_HOME/apex32/machines/ for that file and its embedded documentation.  Each list item in the gui list indicates whether a specific widget's value should be saved between sessions of EnSight.

Each widget item in the gui list begins with a widget name.  If these names, surrounded by '$', are included in the commands in the 'commands' dict item, they will be substituted.  When the commands are to be executed, the widget's value is substituted for the string in the command.

The optional 'connect_url' item can be used to specify a non default ceishell connection URL.  By default the URL 'connect://localhost' is used.