============================================= J A N U A R Y 2 0 0 6 R E L E A S E O F R A D A R / S P A C E - T I M E ============================================= This file includes instructions for running the "Radar 1.1a" version of Radar/Space-Time, released in January 2006. If you have problems with Radar/Space-Time, or suggestions on improving it, please e-mail them to Eugene Fink (e.fink@cs.cmu.edu). The "Radar 1.1" release is designed for novice users, and its GUI has many fewer features than the earlier releases. This simpler GUI causes less confusion for novices, but it provides less opportunities for the collaboration between experienced users and the system. Radar/Space-Time consists of two main parts, ST Module and ST GUI, which can run on the same computer or on two different computers. ST Module is the back end with scheduling and information-elicitation mechanisms, whereas ST GUI is the front end. Radar/Space-Time runs only under Windows; the computer that runs ST Module should have the .Net framework, whereas the computer that runs ST GUI should have Java Runtime 1.4.2. If ST Module and ST GUI run on the same computer, they can run without Internet access; however, if there is no Internet, GUI does not allow opening new schedule files through the "File / Open" menu option. -= Launching ST Module and ST GUI =- The executable files for ST Module and ST GUI are available at www.cs.cmu.edu/~eugene/Radar/Code/st8-bin.zip. The access to this Zip file is password-protected; the user name for accessing it is "canti", and the password is also "canti". To run the system, unzip it onto a local drive, which will create an "st" directory. To run Radar/Space-Time, you should launch ST Module and ST GUI; you may run them on the same computer or on two different computers. If you would like to run them on the same computer, double-click "st.bat", which launches both ST Module and ST GUI; alternatively, you may double-click "st-module.exe" and then "st-gui.jar". If you use "st-bat.exe", ST Module immediately connects with ST GUI; on the other hand, if you click "st-module.exe" and "st-gui.exe", you should establish this connection manually. To establish it, click "File" in the upper left corner of ST GUI, select "Connect to Server", type "localhost" in the "Server Address" box, and click "OK". If you would like to run ST Module and ST GUI on different computers, create identical "st" directories with the same files on both computers. Then, double-click "st-module.exe" on the back-end computer, and "st-gui.jar" on the front-end computer. After opening ST GUI on the front-end computer, click "File" in the upper left corner, select "Connect to Server", type the name of the back-end computer, and click "OK". The release includes a sample two-day conference, which takes place on June 6-7, 2005. The file with the description of this conference is "st/db/worldstate.stp". When you start ST Module on the back-end computer, it automatically opens this file. After GUI connects with ST Module, it gets a copy of this file and displays the schedule. If you would like to start with a different conference file, you should name it "worldstate.stp" and place it into "st/db/" instead of the provided file. You must always provide some "st/db/worldstate.stp" file; if the system does not have this file, it will not work. The release includes several other sample schedules in the "st/Schedules" directory; the extension of the files with these schedules is ".stp". To use them, move the "Schedules" directory to the desktop of the front-end computer, which is the default directory for loading and saving ".stp" files. You may load these files through the "File / Open" menu option; also, you may save the current schedule as a new file through "File / Save As". The "Open" operation is part of GUI, which means that you can open a file only if it is on a local or mapped drive of the front-end computer. Similarly, you can save a new file only onto a drive of the front-end computer. If you use the "File / Open" option, ensure that the front-end computer has Internet access, since it requires the XML schema at "http://basalt.amulet.cs.cmu.edu/radar/scenario.xsd". Note that an ".stp" file contains all available information about the world, including room properties, conference events, preferences for scheduling these events, and a specific schedule; if you open an ".stp" file, you replace all this information. Also note that the encoding of ".stp" files is based on XML, and you may view them using an XML or text editor. -= Scheduling =- You may modify the schedule by dragging events to different time slots. If you move an event into a completely unacceptable slot, the system shows a red exclamation mark for this event. For example, it shows the exclamation mark if an event shares a room with another event, or if the room size is smaller than the minimal acceptable size for this event. You may also remove an event from the schedule by dragging it into the list of "unscheduled" events on the right, or by right-clicking on it and selecting "Unschedule". You may make a room unavailable for the conference by right-clicking on its name, in the room list on the left, and unchecking "Mark As Available." You may also "hide" some rooms by clicking on their name in the list, and "show" them by clicking on their name again. The purpose of "hiding" rooms is to reduce horizontal scrolling when the schedule includes a large number of rooms; note that "hiding" a room does not make it unavailable. You may invoke the automatic scheduler by clicking "Reschedule" in the upper right corner. The system then generates an improved schedule, which replaces the current schedule. You may also click the "Publish" button in the upper left corner, which corresponds to changing the schedule in the "real world". The system allows "Publish" only when all events have acceptable times slots, that is, when the schedule does not include any exclamation marks. This operation produces the following results: (1) The system stores the current schedule in "st/db/worldstate.xml" on the back-end computer, which replaces the old schedule. The system keeps a back-up of the old schedule in "st/db/oldworldstate-XXXX.stp" on the back-end computer, where "XXXX" is the number of the "publish" operation; the first "publish" creates a "0000" file, the second creates a "0001" file, and so on. If ST Module and ST GUI run on the same computer, you may later open a back-up schedule file through "File / Open". If they run on different computers, you may reuse a back-up file by copying it onto the front-end computer and then opening it through "File / Open". Alternatively, you may reuse it by renaming it into "worldstate.stp" and re-starting the system. (2) The system generates the "Planner Schedule Changes-XXXX.txt" and "Planner Schedule Changes-XXXX.wbe" files in the "Schedule Changes" directory on the desktop of the back-end computer. These files include a list of differences between the old schedule (i.e. "worldstate.stp" before "publish") and the published schedule (i.e. "worldstate.stp" after "publish"). The ".txt" file shows the differences in a human-readable format, whereas the ".wbe" file shows them in the format of the WbE module. "XXXX" in the file name is the number of the "publish" operation; the first "publish" creates "0000" files, the second creates "0001" files, and so on. GUI includes the "undo" and "redo" buttons in the "Edit" menu, which allow undoing any operations except "publish". You may undo the results of manual and automatic re-scheduling, as well as changes to the room availability. -= Troubleshooting and bug reports =- If ST Module does not run, make sure that the executable files are on a local drive, and that the computer has .Net framework. If the files are on a mapped network drive, ST Module may not work. Also, make sure that the "st/db/" directory includes "worldstate.stp". If ST GUI does not run, make sure that the computer has Java Runtime 1.4.2. You may use any subversion of 1.4.2, but you cannot use earlier or later versions. If opening ".stp" files through "File / Open" causes problems, make sure that the computer has Internet access. If you still have problems running the system, please e-mail Eugene Fink (e.fink@cs.cmu.edu). The list of known bugs is available on the "Radar/Space-Time" page at www.cs.cmu.edu/~eugene/Radar/Short/bugs.txt. If you have encountered a new bug, please e-mail your bug report to Eugene (e.fink@cs.cmu.edu), and try to provide as much of the following information as possible: () Please provide a description of the observed bug. If any part of the system has crashed, please also include the related error message. () If you have not opened ".stp" files through "File / Open", please enclose the initial "st/db/worldstate.xml" file, which you used when starting Radar/Space-Time. If you have opened an ".stp" file, please enclose the last opened file. () Please enclose the "st/db/UILog.txt" file, which includes a list of all user actions from starting Radar/Space-Time. -= Folders with executable files =- The "st" directory includes the following five subdirectories. optimizer: The executable files of Optimizer, which is a component of ST Module. Optimizer includes local-search algorithms for generating a conference schedule. elicitor: The executable files of Elicitor and Converter, which are also components of ST Module. Elicitor generates questions about missing data, whereas Converter translates these questions into natural language and sends them to ST GUI. db: The XML and ASCII files that represent the world model, list of assignments, templates for generating natural-language questions, parameters of the optimization and elicitation algorithms, and rules for timing the invocation of the main components of ST Module. msgs: The archive of all messages from ST GUI to ST Module. lib: The standard Java procedures used by ST GUI.