Newsgroups: comp.parallel.pvm
From: James Arthur Kohl <kohl@msr.epm.ornl.gov>
Subject: NEW XPVM 1.2.0 RELEASE!!!
Organization: Oak Ridge National Laboratory
Date: Fri, 01 Nov 1996 10:48:18 -0500
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Message-ID: <327A1BC2.41C6@msr.epm.ornl.gov>

Greetings PVM-ers and XPVM-ers alike,

The latest and greatest XPVM release, version 1.2.0 is now available
from Netlib (http://www.netlib.org/pvm3/xpvm/index.html).

There's all sorts of new stuff in there, as I'll briefly comment on
below, but probably the biggest advance is compatibility with the
last official release of TCL 7.5 / TK 4.1.  (Of course, there's
now a new TCL 7.6 / TK 4.2 release, but I think it will work with
that, too. :-)

I've ripped the heck out of the XPVM code the past year to prepare
for interfacing with the upcoming release of PVM 3.4 and it's new
tracing facility (with trace buffering, user-defined events, and
automatic tracing connections to "tracer" programs...  good stuff).

The new XPVM includes a sneak preview of the new tracer library, in
a twin "tracer" directory next to "src", so when you make XPVM don't
be surprised when stuff compiles in there.  :-)

That's another thing - the dynamic loading / shared library features
of the new TCL / TK make generating a pre-compiled binary distribution
of XPVM highly annoying, if not impossible for certain architectures.
So, sorry all those of you who fear makefiles, you get to compile XPVM
yourself now.  Don't worry, it's not that bad...  (some of those pesky
Makefile.aimk defines are gone now :-)

O.K., so what's in the new XPVM 1.2.0 you ask?

* Cleaned up main controls up top - separate "Status" and "Help"
	message displays, standard-looking "File..." menu for
	quitting / halting, new "Options..." menu, etc.

* Can you say FAST FORWARD?!  Makes a huge difference in view
	performance - skip over long dry spells quickly and get
	to the real meat of your trace!

* All New Correlate Mode!!!  Wanna go "back in time" and see what
	the program state was?  Just select "Correlate" for "Mode"
	in the "Options..." menu, and then click in either the
	Space-Time or Utilization View to select your "correlate
	time."  The Network, Message Queue and Call Trace Views
	will redraw back to that point in time to provide a more
	accurate picture of what's happening.  (Typically, because
	events arrive at XPVM slightly out of order due to network
	delays, these views may not reflect the exact state of
	your system during "real-time" trace play...)
 
* New Trace Event History View - lists all events in a scrollable
	text window.  Both this view and the Task Output View now
	support handy features like text filtering and searching,
	and the Task Output View file manipulations are cleaner.

* Task Sorting - ever wanna see your tasks in their spawn order,
	or re-arrange them to see ring or tree communication
	patterns in the Space-Time?  Well now you can (it slices,
	it dices...).  Under the "Options..." menu, you can choose
	from several different task sorting modes.  In "Alpha"
	you get the good old alphabetic sort by host/task name
	like you always had.  In "Task ID", the tasks are sorted
	numerically by their tids (spawn order by host).  Then
	in "Custom" mode, you get to put the tasks in any order
	you want - just click on the task label in either the
	Space-Time or Call Trace View and slide the task to its
	new position.

There's all sorts of other minor little goodies stuffed in there,
but I'm sure you will find them on your own if you care.

Please keep in mind, I've beaten the heck out of the original XPVM
source code here, and there may be some bogons mixed in there for
fun.  Feel free to email me at "kohl@msr.epm.ornl.gov" with any
questions, problems or suggestions!

Good Luck, and Enjoy!  :-)

	Jim

