NAME

journalling − NeWS event record and playback package

SYNOPSIS

journalling

DESCRIPTION

The Journalling package allows you to capture NeWS mouse and keyboard events onto a file, and then play the file back.  This results in NeWS acting like a player piano, faithfully duplicating the original user actions in real time.  This package permits continuous replaying of a given file. Playback can be interrupted at any time by clicking one of the mouse buttons. Journalling also includes playback speed control, which allows you to slow down or speed up the playback rate.

USAGE

Invoking the journalling program will add a Journalling => menu item to the root menu.  The Journal menu item in the  Applications => sub-menu does the same thing.  Note that it will take a few seconds for journalling to load everything into the  server.  There are five submenus under the main Journalling menu item:

Control Panel - Brings up the Journalling control panel
 
Start Recording - Start recording on the current Record file
 
Stop Recording - Signals the end of recording
 
Playback - Starts playback of the current Playback file
 
Remove Journalling - Gets rid of all journalling menus and resources

Note that Playback can be interrupted at any time by hitting one of the mouse keys. Selecting the Control Panel item brings up a control panel window. It contains the following items:

RECORD, STOP, and PLAY buttons: These buttons perform the same function as the corresponding menu items. They also light up to indicate what action is currently taking place. They can be used interchangeably with the menu items.  Record File: This text item allows you to specify the current file to record onto. It can be any valid filename on the server machine.  Relative pathnames are taken to be relative to the directory that NeWS was started from. The default for the Record file is /tmp/NeWS.journal.  Playback File: The current file to playback from. It has the same characteristics as the Record File.  Play Forever toggle switch:  If this switch is on then Journalling will automatically repeat playing the Playback File. 
 
Playback Speed: Slider that scales the playback time.  Positive values make playback speed up, negative values make playback slow down.  This facility is dependent on the speed of the underlying hardware.  It is not calibrated between different machines. 
 
Done: The Done button will hide the Control Panel.  It can be brought back up by selecting the Control Panel menu item.  The Zap window command has the same effect. 

TIPS FOR USING JOURNALLING

When creating journals that will be replayed repeatedly, it is important to get rid of whatever windows you have created at the end of the journal.  The state of the screen should be just as it was when the journal was begun.  Otherwise, the NeWS server will eventually run out of memory because you are continually creating new windows.  Doing a Zap from the All Windows menu at the end of the journal will provide the desired effect.  However, be sure that you then restart a Console window to catch system messages. 
 
There is a noticeable variation in performance on NeWS running on different kinds of machines; it runs much faster on a Sun 4 than on a 3/50! This means that playing back a script recorded on a fast machine might not always work correctly on a slower machine. A given machine can handle NeWS events at some maximum rate. The Playback Speed Control will allow you to adapt playback speed of a given script to a fairly wide range of machines; unfortunately, this requires a bit of trial and error.
 
Care must be taken when recording sequences that contain invocations of Unix programs, particularly when starting new applications. The mouse must not be clicked until the bounding box is up on the screen. If the mouse is clicked early, the wrong window sizing will be made on playback, leading to unpredictable behavior due to the window not being where it was when recording.

FILES

${NEWSHOME}/lib/NeWS/journal.ps Contains the low level journalling code, the control panel and menu code, and state button Lite Item code used by the control panel. 

${NEWSHOME}/demo/journalling Loads ${NEWSHOME}/lib/NeWS/journal.ps. 

SEE ALSO

NeWS Manual

BUGS

The unpredictable behavior of playback due to the non-deterministic Unix scheduling mechanism and general operating environment make reliance on the Journalling package for critical functions unadvisable. 

Sun Release 4.1  —  Last change: 27 October 1987