Software requirements evolve rapidly during the short commissioning period of a third generation light source. Main focus moves from atomic device control to complex conditioning, experiment performance, measurement data taking, beam quality maintenance and performance monitoring tasks. From the very beginning the essential tools have to be set up properly and need to be sufficiently adaptive to easily absorb the actual findings of the running in procedures. In this paper the major software modules at BESSY II are depicted and their relevance for the progress of the commissioning is rated. Implemented functionalities and used methods are described in more detail for the basic working horses (like compound devices, handling of snapshot files, orbit control). Explanations are given why certain tools turned out to be less accepted or useful (yet).
The commissioning period is challenging both for provider and user of accelerator operation software. With increasing knowledge of the specific accelerator new functionalities and methods become important. The variety of implemented features grows until certain standard procedures are settled and the programs can be simplified again for the all day tasks. It is not too difficult to provide the requested functionalities and certain handles for a graphical usage for expert users. For the general member of the commissioning crew, however, the GUI may consist of huge windows, context dependent presentations, hierarchically structured menu trees or compact screens dominated by (modifier) key and mouse click navigation. Understanding and usability of the programs tends to decrease with the increase of available features. By means of examples like the orbit display and control program the problem is outlined and some guidelines leading out of the dilemma are given.
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