"Phoebus" is the current variant of Control System Studio (CS-Studio). This includes the Display Builder, Data Browser, Probe, PV Tree, Alarm, Scan, ... with integration to site-specific email, logbook, PV name completion.

General Download (not for SNS/HFIR)

Nightly builds of a generic CS-Studio product (ORNL/SNS/HFIR users see below):

1. For Windows or Linux, install Java. Suggested is the current one from Open JDK. For Mac OS X, Java is included in the `phoebus-mac.zip` or `phoebus-mac-aarch64.zip`
2. Download the `phoebus-*.zip` for your architecture:
   • Windows
   • Mac (Intel)
   • Mac (Apple M2)
   • Linux
   • (generic, not for ORNL/SNS/HFIR!)
3. Unzip
4. Mac Users:
   It is essential that you move the resulting "CSS_Phoebus" app to the Mac "Applications" folder. If you use the app in the place where you originally unzipped it, the Mac OS security mechanism will always copy its content to a temporary "..../AppTranslocation/..." folder, and the self-update will fail.
   To start for the first time, Control-click on the CSS_Phoebus app that you moved to "Applications" and select "Open". You should get a dialog stating "..unidentified developer.. Are you sure..?" with options "Open", "Delete", "Cancel". If you only see options "Delete" and "Cancel", wait a little and try again, then select "Open". From now on, you can start it by simply double-clicking the CSS_Phoebus app.
   
   Linux or Windows users:
   Edit phoebus.sh (Linux) or phoebus.bat (Windows) as indicated in the comments included in the file to set the path to your phoebus and Java installation.
   You can then invoke phoebus.bat (Windows) or phoebus.sh (Linux).

Start with command line option -help to see available options. The most important one is -settings to provide local settings. Refer to the chapter "Preference Settings" in the online help for more.

ORNL/SNS/HFIR Download

• Windows
• Mac OS X (Intel)
• Mac OS X (Apple M2)
• Linux
• (configured for ORNL/SNS/HFIR, not usable outside of ORNL/SNS/HFIR!)

ORNL/SNS/HFIR users should download the site-specific `product-sns-*.zip`. Compared to the general product, these include settings for ORNL/SNS/HFIR. They also include Java, so compared to the earlier packages a separate installation of Java is no longer necessary.

ORNL/SNS/HFIR Windows Users

Right-click on the downloaded product-sns-win.zip, select "Extract All..." to unpack the ZIP file. You may then delete the downloaded ZIP file. The extracted content will include sub-folders jdk and product-sns-{version}. Inside the latter, double-click on phoebus.bat to start. Windows may open a warning because this software was not sold by Microsoft. Select "detail" and then "Run anyway".

Known issues: Make sure that you extract the ZIP file into a local location like C:\Users\YourName\Downloads and not a network mount like \\ornldata\xyz. If starting the phoebus.bat will only briefly open a window which then quits, open the file in a text editor like "notepad" and change the last line from @rem pause to just pause. When you now run the file, the window should stay open so you can read potential error messages.

ORNL/SNS/HFIR Mac Users

Unzip the downloaded product-sns-mac.zip. The result will be a folder CSS_Phoebus.app, which the Mac Finder shows as just "CSS_Phoebus".

It is essential that you move this "CSS_Phoebus" app to the Mac "Applications" folder. If you use the app in the place where you originally unzipped it, the Mac OS security mechanism will always copy its content to a temporary "..../AppTranslocation/..." folder, and the self-update will fail. By moving it to "Applications", Mac OS will use the in-place content as can be verified via the Menu Help, About, where the "Installation Location" should be similar to "/Applications/CSS_Phoebus.app/product-sns-4.6.0".

To start for the first time, Control-click on the CSS_Phoebus app and select "Open". You should get a dialog stating "..unidentified developer.. Are you sure..?" with options "Open", "Delete", "Cancel". If you only see options "Delete" and "Cancel", wait a little and try again, then select "Open". From now on, you can start by simply double-clicking the CSS_Phoebus app.

ORNL/SNS/HFIR Linux Users

The Linux version of Phoebus includes Java. When you un-zip the downloaded file, you will get a "jdk" folder with Java and a "product-sns-..." folder. Inside the latter you will find a phoebus.sh script for launching Phoebus with the bundled Java. If you decide to adjust the phoebus.sh launcher, beware that the self-update mechanism will replace it. If you want to use a custom launcher, move your launcher script to a location outside of the un-zipped phoebus directory tree.

Version

For version information, check the Menu 'Help', 'About'. In the products distributed for ORNL/SNS/HFIR, the 'CS Studio Version' will indicate the branch of the software repository combined with the build date, for example master 2021-01-18 15:21. A rough summary of recent changes can be found in the "Change Log" section of the online help, also available here. For full detail, refer to the change history in the repository .

Update

The products downloaded from this web site include a self-update mechanism. On startup, they check this web site for a new version. If available, an Update button will appear in the lower right corner of the product. When you press it, you can select to self-update the application.

Beware that there might be frequent updates, concerning details of CS-Studio that do not affect you. For example, an update might be necessary to support some specific display at a beamline, but if you never use that display, you won't notice a difference. It is thus generally not necessary to follow every update, but you might choose to update about once a months, or when you experience a problem and want to check if maybe that issue has already been fixed in the latest version.

Once your selected update has been downloaded, the application will exit. Restart to launch the new version.

The self-update mechanism will restore the original start scripts, so if you need to modify them (typically only necessary on Linux), best use a copy outside of the original ZIP file directory layout to preserve them accross updates.

Note that this self-update mechanism does not always work. Possible issues include a change in version numbers which cause the launch scripts ("phoebus.bat", "phoebus.sh") to fail. Or especially on Windows it's possible that files which need to be updated are locked by the "CA Repeater". In late 2021, this web server changed its certificate and CS-Studio could not obtain information about version updates.

If the self-update mechanism fails for any reason, perform a manual update. Simply delete the Phoebus directory tree and start over with a download as you did the first time around.

Uninstall

Phoebus does not "install" anything outside of the ZIP file directory layout, so to uninstall or to start over with a new download simply delete the Phoebus directory tree.

Phoebus does store settings in the "user settings location". It defaults to the .phoebus folder in your home directory. To verify, check the Help, About dialog. You can delete the .phoebus folder.