1. New Panels ……………………………………………………………………………………… 2
1.1. Job Dependency Graph Panel ……………………………………………………….. 2
1.2. Running Processes Panel ……………………………………………………………… 3
2. Panel Enhancements ……………………………………………………………………….. 3
2.1. Output Image Thumbnails……………………………………………………………… 3
2.2. JobList has tally fields for status …………………………………………………….. 4
2.3. JobList has summary of all task status items ……………………………………. 4
3. UI Customization ……………………………………………………………………………… 5
3.1. Dynamically Loaded Menus …………………………………………………………… 5
3.2. All List Panels now with Customizable Columns ……………………………….. 6
3.3. Package and other parameters now Column Prefs …………………………… 6
4. Usability ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 7
4.1. Search History …………………………………………………………………………….. 7
4.2. Submit Jobs with environment variables ………………………………………….. 7
4.3. Admin -> Install License now a Cut/Paste Dialog Box …………………………. 8
5. Applications …………………………………………………………………………………….. 8
5.1. New in-app submission: Houdini hython render ………………………………… 8
1. New Panels
1.1. Job Dependency Graph Panel
A Job Dependency Graph has been added as a panel in the Job Layout.
It visually shows per-job and per-frame dependency relationships between jobs. It will automatically put all jobs that are in the same metajob pgrp into the view as well as any upstream and downstream jobs.
The background color of the node indicates the status of that job or frame. One can directly select jobs from this panel. In addition, a right-click popup menu allows one to perform all the main job actions directly from within the panel.
It constructs this dependency graph from scanning the Job’s “dependency” field for the standard link-complete-job-# and link-complete-work-#. For those writing custom event-triggered callbacks, one can manually add an info-complete-{} field to represent the complex relationships. Items in the dependency field are comma-separated.
Valid Formats for the “dependency” field:
- <jobid>
- complete-job-<jobid>
- link-<state-<type>-<jobid>
- info-<state>-{”,[]}
- special chars:
- *’ mean each frame
- ” (blank) means entire job
Examples:
- link-complete-job-529, link-complete-work-430, info-complete-{’1′:['540:3'],
‘*’:['600:*'], ”:['700']} , link-complete-job-300, 900, complete-job-123 - info-<state>-{”:['123','456'], ‘*’:['345:*'], ’10′:['346:2', 346:4']}
1.2. Running Processes Layout
The new “Running Process Layout” (or “Running Layout” for short) provides a list of each process running across the farm. It will also pull information from the Worker, job, and frame to give a consolidated bank of useful information for monitoring what is running.
2. Panel Enhancements
2.1. Output Image Thumbnails
The “Output Image Panel” will optionally create smaller thumbnails of the output images and put them into columns. The number of columns depends on the width of the panel.
The width of the thumbnails is specified in the Preferences dialog.
Tip:
If there are 4 layers per frame, then the width can be adjusted to display 4 images per row, one column per layer. Then one can “scrub” up and down to see the image progression.
Note:
For performance reasons, the number of frames displayed per job is capped. For displaying large numbers of images, please consider using an external viewer.
2.2 JobList has tally fields for status
- #P pending
- #K killed
- #B blocked
- #L badlogin
- #C complete
- #W waiting
- #F failed
- #S suspended
- #R running
2.3. JobList has summary of all task status items
A summary of all frame or subjob process states has been added to the JobList as the “State Frames” column. It allows one at a glance to identify all the states for individual items within a job. The states are separated by a “/”.
3. UI Customization
3.1. Dynamically Loaded Menus
All the main and popup menus are now dynamically loaded and exposed to the user. This allows one to add, remove, or tweak the menu items in the interface.
Tip:
For example, one could add a “ssh <hostname>” menu item to the HostList popup menu to have it ssh into the selected host. Another useful item would be to tie it into the renderfarm’s power management controls to start or shutdown machines.
Default menus under simplecmds/
- menu_jobOutput.py
- menu_jobProcessesRunning.py
- menu_jobSubjobs.py
- menu_jobTasks.py
- menu_jobs.py
- menu_main.py
- menu_metajobs.py
- menu_users.py
- menu_workers.py
3.2. All List Panels now with Customizable Columns
All of the List Panels now have customizable columns under the Preferences dialog, instead of just the JobList and HostList.
Examples:
package.scenefile
4. Usability
The search bar will now store recently used searches that can be retrieved by clicking on the search icon (magnifying glass).
4.2. Submit Jobs with environment variables
When submitting jobs, one can now specify the cwd (current working directory) and individual environment variables directly.
4.3. Admin->Install License now a Cut/Paste Dialog Box
Installing a Qube primary license or rental license has now gotten easier thanks to a new cut-and-paste license dialog reached by the “Administration -> Install License” menu item.
5. Applications
5.1. New in-app submission: Houdini hython render
Houdini now has in-application submission for its “hython render” submission interface. This will auto-fill the required fields like scenefile and framerange to make it easier to render directly to your Qube renderfarm while remaining in Houdini.
