Welcome to the AGATA Digitizer Control System

The AGATA digitizer control system is accessed via this collection of web pages. In order to correctly use the pages your web browser should be configured

1)    To support JavaScript
2)    To support Tabs
3)    To open new windows in a new tab
4)    You may have to turn off blocking pop-up windows for the Digitizer Control System

Each web page (screen) has a common look and feel. 
Look for the buttons "What are these" which will cause a message window to be displayed containing information about the screen (or a portion of the screen).

At the bottom of every screen there is a row of buttons 

Each screen has an area (which is by default not shown) which contains logging information about interactions between your browser and the Control Server and the Control Server and the digitizer hardware. 

To enable disable of this area use the button "Show Log Window". When the log area is displayed the button changes to "Hide Log Window"
The log area may contain up to 1000 lines of text. You can use "Empty Log Window" to remove all existing information. NOTE: The log area is displayed in reverse order (so the most recent information is at the top).

The button "Enable Logging" increases the level of information displayed (for debug purposes). When this option is selected the button changes to "Disable Logging".

The button "Send Log Window to Elog" causes the full contents of the log area to be sent to the AGATA Elog (if available).

"Show Variables" is essentially a debug facility and shows the value of selected internal variables. 

The button "Reload" just causes the screen to be redisplayed. This may be useful since some of the information on the screen is dynamic and this will be updated.

The button "Reset" also causes the screen to be redisplayed but in addition the software creating the screen is reloaded and reinitialized. This is mainly a development tool.
It is now possible to activate changes to the hardware configuration without restarting the server (See Hardware Configuration). Firstly it is recommended that you close all windows (tabs) related to the AGATA Digitizer Controls except this window (AGATA Digitizer: Control). The "Reset" button will now cause the hardware related menus to change to the new configuration.



Most buttons and menus are dynamic. This means that in most cases if you click on a button or select a menu item the appropriate action will occur immediately without further interaction. There are a very few exceptions which are noted in the online help.
NOTE: All menus act only if you CHANGE the value selected. 


The browser session interacts with a Control Program (Web Server) in one of the AGATA Control workstations. This Control Program then accesses the available digitizer hardware modules. Very many of the browser interactions cause a dialog between the Control Program and firmware within the digitizer hardware. Normally each interaction is very quick but some operations (such as SETUP) require many interactions and so take longer. 

Certain of the firmware functions are much slower and so the browser has to wait - be patient. There is no method for the Control Program to know directly that each internal component of a digitizer is working correctly or even present. So software timeouts are used between the Control Program and the digitizer control board firmware and also between the control board firmware and the Virtex FPGAs. The digitizer control board firmware must be allowed to timeout first and so the timeout as seen by the browser may be as long as 10 seconds. The browser will show that it is waiting for the Control Program Server and so you too have to wait. 
Repeated long delays (other than when using parameter SAVE/RESTORE commands) suggest that there may be a problem within the digitizer hardware or digitizer control network.