Flightdeck-UI -- a Cockpit for your Desktop (initial release)

[fdui@openlight.com]

The goal of the Flightdeck-UI project is to apply ideas from
aircraft instrumentation design to general purpose user interfaces.

The project homepage is at "http://www.openlight.com/fdui/".
Flightdeck-UI is open source.  It is written in Python
and requires Tkinter.

A whitepaper and the initial code release are available at the
project website.  The library modules in the current release
include two virtual instruments (altimeter-style and VSI-style
gauges) and a demonstration program.  

The demonstration program ("cmdwatch.py") will monitor the output of a
Unix command of your choice (you also enter a regex filter and a
numerical expression, so that the final result is a number),
displaying the quantity and rate of change using two gauges on the
screen.  A "SHRINK" button puts up a small window with two scaled-down
gauges, and hides everything else -- so you can keep it running in a
corner of your screen.

As a quick experiment, you can run several instances of "cmdwatch.py"
to monitor multiple variables.  A more comprehensive application --
the Multi-Variable Monitor "mvm.py" is being planned.

Some good places to use Flightdeck-UI are operations centers that
perform monitoring (typically 24x7), as well as tools for System
Administrators who need to keep an eye on multiple machines while
concentrating on other work.

Questions can be emailed to originating address of this message.

Have fun!

George