Process manager

A distributed process panel: starts and stops background processes grouped as Servers/Driver/GUI/Viewer/Monitor.

Overview

quatm/GUI/entries/processmanager.py provides the process manager: it reads the configuration by category (Servers / Driver / GUI / Viewer / Monitor) and generates a SingleProcess start/stop button panel for each script entry, so the whole experiment software suite is managed from one place. Processes are launched with the current interpreter, either as a script or as a module (python -m), carrying the project root and the parent-process watchdog environment.

Process categories

Category	Description	Typical processes
Servers	Communication / property / data services	Data centre, property service, etc.
Driver	Hardware driver processes	FPGA and other device drivers
GUI	Graphical interface processes	Experiment browser, data manager, etc.
Viewer	Data viewing processes	Live plotting, scroll window, image viewer, etc.
Monitor	Monitoring / checking processes	Property checker, message monitor, etc.

Components

Component	Description
`ProcessManager`	Category panel: reads the configuration and generates start/stop buttons for each entry
`SingleProcess`	Single-entry panel: start / asynchronous termination / status polling with coloring
`resolve_script`	Resolves the script entry from the configuration into a launch target (file path or module)

Key methods (SingleProcess)

Method	Description
`startProcess`	Stops the old instance and then starts the subprocess with the current interpreter
`stopProcess`	Terminates the subprocess asynchronously without blocking the GUI thread
`updateStatus`	Periodically polls the exit status and colors it (running / exited normally / crashed)

Usage

from quatm.GUI.entries.processmanager import ProcessManager

pm = ProcessManager(parent=parent)
pm.show()

The entries to manage are defined by the scripts in the configuration file; each entry is started and stopped through its own button panel.