X-SETI v0.8.2

NEW:  X-SETI v0.8.2 is now compatable with the new v2.0 client.  This version is a quick fix and only includes the changes necessary to get X-SETI to work with the new client.  I am also working on a few new features to take advantage of the new client and this will be posted at a later date.  There is one field in X-SETI (Doppler Shift) that will not be filled in with the new version of the client becuase the client no longer outputs this information.  I will remove this field in a subsequent version.  When running under Expect, this version of X-SETI depends on an option (-verbose) which is not documented in the UNIX client man page.  It should be noted that  X-SETI 0.8.2 will NOT work properly with version 1.x clients.  Since the 1.x clients will soon be disallowed by the seti organization, I did not see the need to include code to make this new version of X-SETI work with both clients or to foolproof it against use with the old client.

X-SETI  is a simple Tk-based GUI front end for the UNIX SETI@home client.  X-SETI optionally uses Expect to communicate with the client.  This requires Expect be installed on the target system along with Tcl/Tk, but allows X-SETI to handle all interaction with the client, including account setup and login dialogs.  To use Expect, the expectk command must be in the user's path.  X-SETI is pure Tcl/Tk/Expect and does not need to be compiled.  X-SETI contains a screensaver mode that can be used with XScreenSaver.

NOTE:  X-SETI now does not require Expect to run, although it will use Expect if it is available.  If Expect (expectk) is not available, X-SETI will use wish.  There will be one missing item in the display and the client's output will not be available in the transcript window (the transcript will, however, be available in the shell window).  Also,  X-SETI will not be able to handle the interactive dialog with the client such as account setup and re-login - these will have to be done by running the client once manually.

X-SETI is being developed under Linux (2.0.31 kernel + FVWM2), but  it should work on other UNIX systems which support Tcl/Tk and Expect. Please let me know if there are problems on other systems or if there is any code I should add to enhance portability.

New items in v0.8.2

X-SETI is now compatable with version 2.0 clients.  It will no longer support the 1.x clients.

New items in v0.8.1

• Miscellaneous bug fixes, including fixing a problem that on rare occasions would cause the program to crash when reading the initial completion rate from the state file, fixing team URL's with spaces, more universal grep syntax, and install script fixes.

New items in v0.8

• Improved Web browser function.  X-SETI can first try to open a new window in an existing netscape process, and if this fails, automatically back off to starting a new netscape process.
• Improved handling of saving and restoring full and reduced windows - added an rc file variable to account for differences between window managers.
• Added team/group quick web lookups to the web menu.
• Added the ability to remove the menu bar from the reduced window so that it displays only the progress bar and completion percent.
• Several bug fixes.

New items in v0.7.4

• NOTE:  Because of the new features, X-SETI now REQUIRES Tcl/Tk version 8.0 or higher and will refuse to run with a lower version.  SuSE 6.1 users will have to alias their wish and/or expectk commands to the more recent versions before running X-SETI v0.7.4.  I regret having to make this change, but staying with Tk v4.2 features would become too limiting.  As a result of this, the seti logo images are no longer distributed with X-SETI.
• Added a feature to cull best spike and gaussian statistics from all known directories where X-SETI is controlling a client.  Basically this would be all directories where X-SETI has been started from the current UNIX user account.  The 10 best spikes and gaussians from among all the directories is then displayed in a window.  This feature is intended primarily to cull stats from multiple clients running on one machine, but it should work across multiple machines as long as their client directories are mounted (or automountable) and accessable via nfs.
• Modified the reduced window function so that the reduced window and the main window can now be in different parts of the screen.
• Added the -start command line switch to start the client immediately.

Features

X-SETI captures the pertinent information from the client's output and displays it in a window in an organized fashion.  Although there is no data output from the program which can be graphed or plotted, X-SETI displays a progress bar graph to provide a quick visual indication of how far along the current work unit is. X-SETI is still in development and there may be features that will be added at a later date.  In addition to simply echoing data from the client, X-SETI provides some additional features for controlling the client program:

• The client can be started, stopped, and re-niced from within the X-SETI environment.

 
• Can easily run multiple clients on one machine simply by running multiple instances of X-SETI (clients must be run in separate directories).

 
• X-SETI handles all interaction between the user and the client, including account setup and re-login.  Dialog boxes are provided for items which require interactive input from the user.  This feature is only available if Expect is used.

 
• Keeps a detection history of the sizes and sky locations of your top four spikes and gaussians whenever the client is being run/monitored by X-SETI.  Detection history can be displayed in a window.  The next version will be able to combine these stats from all directories where X-SETI is being used.

 
• Can collect best spike/gaussian statistics from multiple directories where X-SETI is controlling the client and display them in a window.

 
• Quick access to important web sites via user configurable browser commands.

 
• A configuration option is provided to allow X-SETI to periodically restart crashed clients.  I have found that the client can terminate in the event of certain connectivity problems, such as the SETI@home server being down.  Client restarts will be attempted indefinitely when this option is set.

 
• A configuration option is provided to allow X-SETI to automatically use runsocks when starting the client.  This will allow the client accesss through a SOCKS proxy.

 
• If you are using a window manager that supports icon windows and rectangular icons, the program will minimize to an active bar graph icon showing the completion percentage.

 
• The last 500 or so lines of output from the client appear in a scrollable transcript window.  The next release will add the ability to save this transcript to a file.

 
• X-SETI can automatically dial a PPP connection using user-supplied scripts when it determines that the client is waiting to contact the server.  See the  README.DIALPPP  file for more details.  Autodialing can optionally be restricted to a certain time range per day.

Screen Saver Mode

X-SETI now has a basic screen saver mode that will allow it to be used as a screen saver module with XScreenSaver.  For complete details about how the screen saver works, check out the README.SCREENSAVER  file.  Some of the main features are:
 
• X-SETI as a screen saver can control the client - starting and stopping it whenever the screensaver becomes active - or it can display the status of a client that is already running and being controlled by any other front end, including another instance of X-SETI.  If the other cotrolling front end is X-SETI, and Expect is being used, additional status information will be communicated to the screen saver via Tk's "send" facility.

 
• The screen saver will start a client if one is not running or will just monitor the client if one is already running.

 
• In screen saver mode, X-SETI does not require Expect in order to run.  In screen saver mode, X-SETI will use Expect (expectk) if it is available, and will use wish if it is not.

 
• The primary screen saver feature is a status window that floats across the blanked screen.

 
• In screen saver mode, X-SETI can optionally run existing XScreenSaver graphics hacks as "background hacks" in the virtual root window in back of the floating status window.  (There are some limitations to this, see the README.SCREENSAVER  file.)

 
• Here is a screen shot of what the screen saver looks like (showing the "rocks" XScreenSaver graphic running as a "background hack").

Almost there but not quite finished:

• Ability to save contents of transcript window to a file.

 
• Miscellaneous  improvements / bug fixes / platform independence fixes.

Screen Shots (version 0.8)

Main Window:


 

Reduced Window:


 

Active Icon (icon window support req'd):


 

Detection History

Combined Detection History

What is Required?

X-SETI itself is written entirely in Tcl, which is an interpreted language, so it requires no compilation and should run on any platform which supports the underlying packages, Tcl/Tk and Expect.  X-SETI is written to Tcl/Tk version 8.0 and  Expect version 5.24.  Other older or newer versions may work with X-SETI, but I haven't tested them. It should be noted that the documentation for Expect guarantees compatability only with released stable versions of Tcl/Tk; compatability with alpha or beta versions of Tcl/Tk is not guaranteed.  Both Tcl/Tk and Expect can be downloaded from the links shown below.  Precompiled versions and RPM packages are available from various other sites for some platforms.

X-SETI does not require Expect, however, several features will be unavaiable if Expect is not used.  In particular, the ability to handle interactive stuff (account setup) and the transcript window will not be available.
 

Compatibility

X-SETI version 0.8.2 is compatible with version 2.0 of the SETI@home client.

Usage

View the README file for details on how to setup and use X-SETI.

Caveats and Bugs

The core of X-SETI is an Expect loop, and as such is utterly dependent on the sequences of prompts and outputs coming from the client.   The UNIX client is still undergoing revisions.  Although I hope they stabilize the user interface at some point, currently  the  interface is still changing and v0.46 broke several things in X-SETI that had to be fixed.

There have only been a handful of testers of this program so far other than myself, so it should be considered beta software.  At this point, I probably have not seen all possible error scenarios and all possible output from the client program, and it is likely there are still bugs in my code.  If you find a piece of output which causes X-SETI to misbehave, please send me a transcript of the offending output so I can include it in the program, or send the appropriate piece of code if you have already fixed the problem.

Downloading

X-SETI Version 0.8.2

X-SETI Version 0.8.1

X-SETI Version 0.7.4

Change Log

README File

X-SETI is provided under the terms of the GPL.

Links

• SETI@home - The SETI@home web site.

 
• Setiview - A ncurses front end for SETI@home.  This program was one of the inspirations for this X11-based  version.

 
• TkSETI - Another Tk-based front end for SETI@home.  TkSETI can control an already running setiathome client and can retrieve comparative usage stats from the server.  This program is undergoing more active development than X-SETI, so it probably has more bells and whistles, if that's your thing.

 
• Setiherder - A GTK-based front end for controlling multple clients on remote hosts.

 
• SOCKS5 - Shared library and script to allow standard TCP/IP clients to access the internet through a SOCKS proxy server.  The package also contains a SOCKS server and several SOCKS5 clients.

• tcltk.com - Tcl/Tk online resources and information.

• Expect -  The Expect extension to the Tcl/Tk language.

 
• Scriptics -  A commercial company founded by the author of Tcl/Tk.  Lots of useful information and links to the most recent versions of Tcl/Tk.

 
• Please feel free to address any comments, bug reports, questions, suggestions, and improvements to me.