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Performance Database Graphic User Interface and Performance Analysis Toolkit (viewer)

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1. Installation: 

a. System requirement.

In general, a modern UNIX-compatible platform should be able to run viewer.
The following software packages are required for building viewer.

 * viewer is one of three software components of performance database framework. The 
   other two components are PerfDB and DMS. viewer is not able to work properly 
   without these two components being installed. So before installation, please make
   sure that you have correctly installed PerfDB and DMS.
   
 * viewer is written in Java.  It requires a JDK 1.4 or higher and ANT 1.5 or higher.
   ANT is a tool for building Java-based packages. It can be downloaded from the ANT web 
   site.
 	
2. Compilation:

In directory of viewer, where build.xml file is located, entering "ant" will compile
all source files in src/ directory. After the compilation, java class files are generated and stored in classes/ directory, and a perfdbgui.jar file is created in jars/ directory.
   

3. Run:

  In general, running viewer is as simple as:

  java -cp dependent-jar-file-name src.GUI.MainWindow db-config-file-name

  db-config-file-name is a database configuration file that is created when installing
  PerfDB.  

  There are six dependent jar files for viewer:
  * postgresql.jar - PostgreSQL JDBC driver
  * xerces.jar - xml parser
  * perfdb.jar - performance database builder
  * jargs.jar - command line parser
  * dms.jar - performance database query API
  * viewer.jar - viewer

  A default location for these files is ../. directory. You can put them elsewhere
  though, and indicate the location in java options. The demo script in bin/ directory
  gives an example script of running viewer.    

4. A quick tutorial of the toolkit

  In main window of viewer, users are able to do following things:
	
  * load applications, experiments and trials. The functionality is available in 
    'Database' menu.

  * look at performance data. Various options are available in 'Options' menu, which 
    provides different views of an execution. Select a trial node on the left side of 
    the window before looking at its performance data. 

  * compare trials/functions. First select all trials/functions to be compared, click
   'Operations' menu, select 'Compare', and then choose 'Trial'/'Functions' menu. 

  * scalability plots. First Select a group
    of trials to be investigated, click 'Operations' menu, select 'Scalability', and then
    choose a metric menu of interest.  A plot window will thereby pop up, 
    displaying one or more performance data curves.  



