proposed grouping of rqt plugins

[Dirk Thomas]

With the number of rqt plugins growing the list of plugins becomes pretty confusing.
Additonally some plugins are not labeled greatly which makes it even more difficult to find the right tool.

Since rqt already supports grouping plugins into submenus we should start making use of that feature.
On the following ticket we had some discussion on how to group/name plugins: https://github.com/ros-visualization/rqt_common_plugins/issues/167
Please considering reading through the ticket and post your comments/suggestions there (or here).

The latest complete proposal looks like this:

- Actions
- Action Caller # this doesn't exist yet
- Action Type Browser # formerly Action Type Introspection
- Services
- Service Caller # formerly ServiceCaller
- Service Type Browser # formerly Service Introspection
- Topics
- Message Publisher # formerly Publisher
- Message Type Browser # formerly Message Introspection
- Topic Monitor # formerly Topic Introspection
- Logging
- Bag
- Console
- Logger Level
- (How should this group be named?)
- Dynamic Reconfigure
- Launch
- Introspection
- Node Graph
- Package Graph
- Process Monitor
- Visualization
- GPS
- Image View
- Navigation Viewer
- Plot
- RViz
- TF Tree
- Robot Tools
- Moveit! Monitor
- Robot Monitor # consider renaming to 'Diagnostics Viewer'?
- Robot Steering
- Runtime Monitor # deprecated in favor of Robot Monitor?
- PR2
- PR2 Dashboard
- PR2 Motor Diagnostic
- PR2 PBD GUI
- Kobuki
- Kobuki Desktop
- Miscellaneous Tools
- PyConsole
- Shell
- Web
- Experimental
- New plugins...

Thank you,
- Dirk

[Aaron Blasdel]

I like the groups and the renaming. 

Not sure about the dynamic rec/launcher group. They are an parameter editor and a launcher. Not exactly similar. Maybe have a parameters group for things that interact there?

Bag has a simulation playback component too which gets a bit muddled here. 

Launcher doesn't really have anything it can be friends with it is just different. I would suggest putting it in miscellaneous.

I agree that at some point we need to deprecate runtime monitor. But that should probably be after the issues in robot monitor get fixed. 

Aaron

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[Daniel Stonier]

The list robots is an unbounded list - might be worth putting them further under a Robots folder.

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[Daniel Stonier]

^list of robots.

[Dirk Thomas]

Very good point, Daniel.
I updated the last comment in the wiki: added a "Robot" group under which Kobuki, PR2 etc. are nested.

- Dirk

On 30.09.2013 16:39, Daniel Stonier wrote:
> The list robots is an unbounded list - might be worth putting them further under a Robots folder.
>
>
> On 1 October 2013 08:19, Aaron Blasdel <abla...@gmail.com <mailto:abla...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> I like the groups and the renaming.
>
> Not sure about the dynamic rec/launcher group. They are an parameter editor and a launcher. Not exactly similar. Maybe have a parameters group for things that interact there?
>
> Bag has a simulation playback component too which gets a bit muddled here.
>
> Launcher doesn't really have anything it can be friends with it is just different. I would suggest putting it in miscellaneous.
>
> I agree that at some point we need to deprecate runtime monitor. But that should probably be after the issues in robot monitor get fixed.
>
> Aaron
>
>
>
> On Monday, September 30, 2013, Dirk Thomas wrote:
>
> With the number of rqt plugins growing the list of plugins becomes pretty confusing.
> Additonally some plugins are not labeled greatly which makes it even more difficult to find the right tool.
>
> Since rqt already supports grouping plugins into submenus we should start making use of that feature.

> On the following ticket we had some discussion on how to group/name plugins: https://github.com/ros-__visualization/rqt_common___plugins/issues/167

> Google group at http://groups.google.com/__group/ros-sig-rqt?hl=en <http://groups.google.com/group/ros-sig-rqt?hl=en>

> rqt: http://ros.org/wiki/rqt
>
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> --

> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to ros-sig-rqt...@googlegroups.com <mailto:ros-sig-rqt%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com>

> Google group at http://groups.google.com/group/ros-sig-rqt?hl=en
> rqt: http://ros.org/wiki/rqt
>
>
>
>
> --
> Phone : +82-10-5400-3296 (010-5400-3296)
> Home: http://snorriheim.dnsdojo.com/
> Yujin R&D: http://rnd.yujinrobot.com/
>

[Isaac Isao Saito]

+1. Thanks for the suggestion!

+100 for renaming `Robot Monitor` to `Diagnostics Viewer`. `Robot
Monitor` is too broad.

Question: will developers have a capability to assign a group for the
plugin they develop?


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+1-469-688-9008 (US)

[Dirk Thomas]

On 30.09.2013 17:09, Isaac Isao Saito wrote:
> +1. Thanks for the suggestion!
>
> +100 for renaming `Robot Monitor` to `Diagnostics Viewer`. `Robot
> Monitor` is too broad.
>
> Question: will developers have a capability to assign a group for the
> plugin they develop?

Yes, since the information is embedded in the plugin.xml file (see http://wiki.ros.org/rqt/Tutorials/Create%20your%20new%20rqt%20plugin#Create_plugin.xml_file) the maintainer has full control over the
grouping.

- Dirk

[Tully Foote]

On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 4:19 PM, Aaron Blasdel <abla...@gmail.com> wrote:

I like the groups and the renaming. 

Not sure about the dynamic rec/launcher group. They are an parameter editor and a launcher. Not exactly similar. Maybe have a parameters group for things that interact there?

The Parameters group is a good parallel.  Do we not have a static parameter viewer/editor that would go with it in the tab. 

[Aaron Blasdel]

At the moment we don't have just a viewer/editor. It seems like it could use a very similar interface to the dynamic reconfigure plugin. 

[Dirk Thomas]

The proposed grouping has finally been committed to the various plugin repos:

* https://github.com/ros-visualization/rqt_common_plugins/commit/f1fc579849578d3384ce42cfb5146aa400d128c6
* https://github.com/ros-visualization/rqt_robot_plugins/commit/772485a364203d9d0f9a8ff57870e89e2bfa42ce
* https://github.com/ros-visualization/rqt_pr2_dashboard/commit/58511021529f0541994e95583d2dab7af78ed1e8
* https://github.com/yujinrobot/kobuki_desktop/pull/23
* https://github.com/turtlebot/turtlebot_create_desktop/issues/8

A couple of plugins (which have a high number of major bugs reported and which are not actively being addressed) have been labeled as "experimental"
(https://github.com/ros-visualization/rqt_common_plugins/commit/11eecfdace7f99d6ac794337fcde9984fcaea7ba) to set the expectations for users more reasonable:

* rqt_launch
* rqt_reconfigure

Please feel free to checkout the repos from source and try the new grouping of plugins.
With the next release of all of these repos the changes will become available via Debian packages.

Cheers,
- Dirk

On 01.10.2013 19:28, Aaron Blasdel wrote:
> At the moment we don't have just a viewer/editor. It seems like it could use a very similar interface to the dynamic reconfigure plugin.
>
> On Tuesday, October 1, 2013, Tully Foote wrote:
>
>
>
>
> On Mon, Sep 30, 2013 at 4:19 PM, Aaron Blasdel <abla...@gmail.com <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'abla...@gmail.com');>> wrote:
>
> I like the groups and the renaming.
>
> Not sure about the dynamic rec/launcher group. They are an parameter editor and a launcher. Not exactly similar. Maybe have a parameters group for things that interact there?
>
>
> The Parameters group is a good parallel. Do we not have a static parameter viewer/editor that would go with it in the tab.
>
>
> Bag has a simulation playback component too which gets a bit muddled here.
>
> Launcher doesn't really have anything it can be friends with it is just different. I would suggest putting it in miscellaneous.
>
> I agree that at some point we need to deprecate runtime monitor. But that should probably be after the issues in robot monitor get fixed.
>
> Aaron
>
>
>
> On Monday, September 30, 2013, Dirk Thomas wrote:
>
> With the number of rqt plugins growing the list of plugins becomes pretty confusing.
> Additonally some plugins are not labeled greatly which makes it even more difficult to find the right tool.
>
> Since rqt already supports grouping plugins into submenus we should start making use of that feature.

> On the following ticket we had some discussion on how to group/name plugins: https://github.com/ros-__visualization/rqt_common___plugins/issues/167

> Google group at http://groups.google.com/__group/ros-sig-rqt?hl=en <http://groups.google.com/group/ros-sig-rqt?hl=en>

> rqt: http://ros.org/wiki/rqt
>
> --
> --

> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to ros-sig-rqt...@googlegroups.com <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'ros-sig-rqt%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com');>

> Google group at http://groups.google.com/group/ros-sig-rqt?hl=en
> rqt: http://ros.org/wiki/rqt
>
>
> --
> --

> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to ros-sig-rqt...@googlegroups.com <javascript:_e({}, 'cvml', 'ros-sig-rqt%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com');>

[Isaac Isao Saito]

On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 3:29 AM, Dirk Thomas <dth...@osrfoundation.org> wrote:
> :

> A couple of plugins (which have a high number of major bugs reported and
> which are not actively being addressed) have been labeled as "experimental"
> (https://github.com/ros-visualization/rqt_common_plugins/commit/11eecfdace7f99d6ac794337fcde9984fcaea7ba)
> to set the expectations for users more reasonable:
>
> * rqt_launch
> * rqt_reconfigure

They have higher number of tickets partly because I was eager to find
issues. But admittedly I've been unbale to spend time on working on
these and I take this as an encouragement to me to fix issues
(patches are appreciated).

--
IS

[Dirk Thomas]

On 05.12.2013 11:33, Isaac Isao Saito wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 6, 2013 at 3:29 AM, Dirk Thomas <dth...@osrfoundation.org> wrote:
>> :
>> A couple of plugins (which have a high number of major bugs reported and
>> which are not actively being addressed) have been labeled as "experimental"
>> (https://github.com/ros-visualization/rqt_common_plugins/commit/11eecfdace7f99d6ac794337fcde9984fcaea7ba)
>> to set the expectations for users more reasonable:
>>
>> * rqt_launch

https://github.com/ros-visualization/rqt_common_plugins/search?q=rqt_launch&ref=cmdform&state=open&type=Issues

9 open tickets, ranging from blockers (does not support machine tag, pyside segfault, not stopping nodes) to minor bugs (switching between launch files, wrong ros master url).

>> * rqt_reconfigure

https://github.com/ros-visualization/rqt_common_plugins/search?p=2&q=rqt_reconfigure&ref=cmdform&state=open&type=Issues

13 open tickets, ranging from blockers (unable to set certain values), workaround-able bugs (broken/overlapping layout, filtering and selection), simple enhancement (tooltips, etc.)
Especially the blockers make it impossible to use in certain scenarios / with specific parameters.

> They have higher number of tickets partly because I was eager to find
> issues. But admittedly I've been unbale to spend time on working on
> these and I take this as an encouragement to me to fix issues
> (patches are appreciated).

I know that it is difficult to find the time to address all incoming tickets.
That's why the "experimental" label should give the user a more realistic expectation what to expect.
Any plugin which has bugs which prevent the user to use it as intended and which are not addressed in a timely fashion should be marked like this.
It just indicates that there a known problems and it might not work for all use cases (yet).

- Dirk