Open Source Collaboration Platform

Version 0.13 of Robotics Systems Commons has been released today and is available as a branch in the git repository.

The following things have changed:

• PluginConfigurator throws an exception in case a requested plugin cannot be loaded
• Support function for list-like configuration options to inherit values of previous config parsing stages
• More flexibility in DefineProjectVersion

The full list of addressed issues is available here

• allow for parallel starting / stopping of components at same level
  different levels are handled consecutively
• even different groups can be started / stopped in parallel
• individual components start / stop in between too
• start / stop within same group conflicts with each other -> cancel a running command
• gui feedback on group commands
• removed level command buttons
• removed obsolete -c option: components are checked in 1s intervals at most
  time required for checking, adds on top of this
• option -w defaults to 5s (timeout for successful component start)

If you observe strange start order, check your levels!
Before, components were started in given order, -w option specifying to wait for a component before proceeding to the next.
Now, all components on the same level are started in parallel. -w option simply states the timeout period, before we give up to wait for this component to be ready.

We released a new version branch "0.4" and added a version tag called "v0.4.0".

Besides multiple bugfixes, we added a new feature: Organizing components using tabs! This is especially helpful when dealing with multiple components of various types. See the wiki for details.

Version 1.0 of the performance monitoring toolchain has been release and is available as separate branches in the individual repositories.

Changed Versioning Scheme¶

Development of this project is continuing much faster than Robotics Service Bus. Therefore the versioning scheme has been decoupled from the RSX scheme.

Changed Repository URLs¶

With this release, the repository URLs have been changed so that their names better match the content. These are the new ULSs:

• process-monitor: https://code.cor-lab.org/git/rsb-performance-monitor.git.process-monitor
• host-monitor: https://code.cor-lab.org/git/rsb-performance-monitor.git.host-monitor
• db-adapter: https://code.cor-lab.org/git/rsb-performance-monitor.git.db-adapter
• grafana dashboards: https://code.cor-lab.org/git/rsb-performance-monitor.git.grafana-dashboards

RSB 0.12 has been released. As a consequence, we are now starting to phase out support for RSB 0.10. Changes between releases can be found in the RSB manual.

As a first step, we have disabled the Jenkins jobs associated to the 0.10 release. For now, artifacts remain available for download, but no new builds will be performed. In case of no objections, we will remove these jobs entirely at some point.

Note that, with some exceptions, unsupported legacy releases remain buildable using the cognitive interaction toolkit infrastructure.

We are happy to announce the release of version 0.12 of the RSB middleware.

Notes¶

• The Common Lisp Tools now use a sub-command-based commandline syntax like git, svn and other modern commandline tools. The previous symbolic-link-based invocation will continue to work for a transition period. Please adapt your usage to the new syntax.
• The C++ implementation has been adapted to use Boost.Signals2 instead of the deprecated version 1. This removes several compilation warnings on modern systems but also slightly changes the (rarely used) external API for participant hooks.

Changes¶

The following changes are included in this release:

Specification

• A "display name" field has been added to the introspection protocol and a corresponding configuration option introspection.displayname has been added. Users can specify this configuration property for individual processes (e.g. via environment variables) to provide a custom name for the process, which is then e.g. shown by the introspection tool.

All languages

• Spread connections are now shared between informers, which reduces the number of open connections to the spread daemon.

C++

• The implementation now uses Boost.Signals2 instead of the deprecated version 1. This changes the external API for participant hooks, which is rarely used externally. In case you have used these hooks, you need to migrate to the new signals namespaces and type names.
• LocalServer::Callback implementations to reuse existing functions or methods have been added.
• Several methods and types that have long been deprecated have been removed.

Java

• Several minor issues in the socket transport implementation have been fixed.

Common Lisp

• The rsb:with-listener, rsb:with-reader, rsb:with-informer, rsb.patterns.request-reply:with-local-server and rsb.patterns.request-reply:with-remote-server macros have been replaced by rsb:with-active-participant and rsb:with-participant.
• Similarly, the rsb:make-listener, rsb:make-reader, rsb:make-informer, rsb.patterns.request-reply:make-local-server and rsb.patterns.request-reply:make-remote-server functions have been replaced by rsb:make-participant.

Common Lisp Tools

• All tools now use sub-command-based commandline syntax like git, svn and other modern commandline tools. The previous symbolic-link-based invocation will continue to work for a transition period. Example of the new syntax: rsb-toolscl0.12 logger --style monitor socket:
• A new experimental web tool which serves information about an RSB system via HTTP has been added.

RSBag

• The commandline interface has been adapted to sub-commands as well.

For a more detailed list of fixed bugs, added features and other enhancements, see https://code.cor-lab.org/versions/42.

Obtaining and Installing RSB¶

In the process, about 30 issues have been created and subsequently resolved.

This RSB release is available in the following forms:

• Source archives
• Pre-compiled self-installing archives or executable binaries
• Debian packages for different Ubuntu Linux versions
• Pypi packages on the official server
• Maven package for rsb-java (on CITEC server) will be distributed once the server authentication is resolved after the LDAP issues.

Installation instructions and links for downloading can be found on the preparation pages of the RSB manual and the RSBag manual.

Bug Reports and Related Projects¶

As always, bugs, feature requests and enhancement proposals can be reported in the respective issue trackers:
RSB,
RSBag.

Please note that the related projects

• RSBag
• RSB GStreamer Integration
• RSB XML Support
• RSB Depth Sensor Support
• RSB OpenCV [Deprecated]
• Robotics Systems Types

have been released as well.

Version 0.12 of Robotics Systems Types has been released.

Major issues addressed in this release are:

• New types (#2218, #2211, #2166)
• As with every release, some types have been promoted from the sandbox domain to the stable domain (#2243)

For a more detailed list of fixed bugs, added features and other enhancements, see https://code.cor-lab.org/versions/42.

The release can be obtained from the "0.12" branches of the git repositories.

Version 0.12 of Robotics Systems Commons has been released today and is available as a branch in the git repository.

This is just a minor bug fix release. The following things have changed:

• The console logging system now always logs to stderr.
• The OS abstraction layer received minor bug fixes.
• A method for logging systems has been renamed from getLoggerName to getName. This method only affects the registration of newly created logging systems and not the public logging API.

The full list of addressed issues is available here

Version 0.11 of Robotics Systems Types has been released.

Major issues addressed in this release are:

• Improved Maven support (#1761, #1719, #1753)
• New types (#1875, #1963, #1964, #2074, #1897, #1775, #2048, #2075)
• As with every release, some types have been promoted from the sandbox domain to the stable domain

For a more detailed list of fixed bugs, added features and other enhancements, see https://code.cor-lab.org/versions/41.

The release can be obtained from the "0.11" branches of the git repositories.

RSB 0.11 has been released. As a consequence, we are now starting to phase out support for RSB 0.9. Changes between releases can be found in the RSB manual (and similarly for related projects).

As a first step, we will disable the Jenkins jobs associated to the 0.9 release. For now, artifacts remain available for download, but no new builds will be performed. At some later point, we will remove these jobs entirely.

Note that, with some exceptions, unsupported legacy releases remain buildable using the cognitive interaction toolkit infrastructure.