New Features
Orca is constantly under development. This page is meant to serve as a location to list significant changes. Minor changes are not listed.
12/15/17 ORCAScript now has global variables.
09/20/16 The newest addition is the Sync Center object. Also ORCA now compiles under XCode 8.
10/21/15 This list has been neglected for some time. The newest addition is the On Call List object.
5/15/14 ORCAScript was extended to include exception handling with a try/catch/finally syntax. In addition dictionaries and arrays can now be created using the Obj-C 2.0 syntax of @{key,value,...}, and @[val1,val2,...]. See the Scripting Reference for details.
11/01/13 Started the process of making ORCA 10.9 and XCode 5 compliant. See here for an important note of scripting under 10.9.
10/31/13 Added the GT521 particle counter.
06/28/13 Added user interaction features to ORCAScript.
01/25/12 Added the Met637 particle counter. It joins the Met237 counter that was added a few months before.
11/23/11 ORCA is now XCode 4 compliant. There are still some non-important warnings that need to be cleared -- ignore them for now.
08/03/11 Added the Rad7 Object Tool.
03/23/11 Added the Run List Tool.
11/04/10 Added the Archival and Update Tool.
9/13/10 Added the VHSC040n HV object.
8/26/10 Added the time lapse camera object.
8/24/10 You can now send email from scripts.
8/23/10 Fixed a window re-opening placement bug. Windows should now always open in the same position where they were closed.
8/22/10 The Process Controller can now send heartbeat emails.
8/18/10 The N version of the CAEN 775 TDC card was added.
7/29/10 The N version of the CAEN 785 ADC card was added.
5/2/10 The plotting system was refactored.
4/30/10 The CAEN 1785 card was added.
6/2/10 The SIS3820 scaler card was added.
6/3/10 The SQL object was added for iORCA access.
6/1/10 The SIS3800 scaler card was added.
4/25/10 The MAJORANA experiment dialog was added.
4/22/10 The KJL2200 Ion Gauge Controller was added.
3/26/10 You can now have window save sets.
3/18/10 HALO experiment dialog added.
2/22/10 The VHS4030 HV Controller added.
12/3/09 The Varian TPS Controller added.
9/24/09 The iTrans Gas Sensor added.
9/17/09 The VHQ224L HV Controller added.
8/28/09 The AmrelHV Controller added.
8/17/09 The SIS3350 Digitizer added.
6/30/09 The Keithley 6487 Controller added.
6/23/09 The CTI Temp Controller added.
6/12/09 The MIT Pulser was added.
5/16/09 The PDCU Controller added.
2/18/09 The LakeShore 210 Controller added.
2/07/09 The Run Notes object was added.
2/07/09 The SIS3302 (Gamma) card was added.
1/06/09 The Mks PDR 2000 was added.
11/30/09 A dynamic label option was added to the text label object.
11/30/09 A background image option was added to the container object.
11/21/09 The low-level data transport code in ORCA was refactored to get rid of some ugly code. Hopefully the impact on users will be minimal.
11/20/09 The SBC download code was heavily reorganized and is now partially C++. Changes should be transparent to everyone except VME SBC users -- they will have to download the newest Universe II drivers. There is a new driver download section in the SBC dialog to make this as easy as possible.
10/18/09 The IPE ADEI object was rewritten.
09/01/09 Obtained version of MacOS 10.6. Used new compiler tools to sweep the code. Removed and replaced many depreciated methods.
8/25/09 Added the Amrel linear HV supply
8/20/09 Added the Struck SIS3350 100MHz digitizer
8/5/09 Updated the help for several CAEN card which were missing.
8/5/09 The VME VHQ224L High Voltage controller was added.
6/19/09 The VME CAEN 965 QDC was added.
6/11/09 A configuration can now be started from a set of standard templates.
5/27/09 Contextual menus were added to the objects represented by icons.
5/20/09 The PCI Bit3 drivers have been updated and are now functional under 10.5.
5/13/09 Added the Ortec MCA927. This is a two channel multi-channel analyzer.
5/08/09 Added the Motion Node accelerometer.
4/23/09 Custom Curve Fitting You can now enter custom ROOT equations for curve fitting.
4/14/09 Command Center. The simple parser used in the command center was expanded to be able to handle plists as arguments.
4/10/09 KATRIN PAC Board. The Power and control board working and tested.
4/2/09 ORCAScript additions. The ORCAScript syntax has been expanded to handle nested Obj-C method calls. Library additions include routines for making NSDictionaries and NSArrays within scripts. You can also insert arbitrary data into the data stream from a script. Data Explorer was modified to be able to decode those records.
4/3/09 TK220 scope. The Tektronics 220 digital scope is now supported.
4/1/09 Custom Plotter. A plotter is available for plotting variables collected from scripts.
4/1/09 Run Control. There are now options to break a run up into sub runs.
2/6/09 Data Monitor. There is now an option to ship end-of-run histograms in the regular data stream.
2/6/09 SIS3300 Digitizer. A VME 100MHz 8 channel 12/14 bit digitizer.
2/2/09 CTI Temp Readout
1/6/09. MKS PDR2000 Gauge Controller.
1/5/09. Script Debugger. The ORCAScript IDE now has a debugger.
12/9/08. Code Repository Moved. The code repository is now hosted on orca.physics.unc.edu. See the Installation guide for more information.
12/2/08. Run Control Scripts. You can now select a script to run automatically just before a run is started or stopped.
11/17/08. ORCA is now 10.5 compliant! This means that it will now build without warnings with the 10.5 SDK. Very soon we will no longer support 10.4 and ORCA will become a 10.5 only application. This is necessary in order to take advantage of the new technologies that are available only in 10.5. You should plan on updating all machines to 10.5.
Better Connection Filtering. The control of what can be connected to what has been refined and made more error-proof. April 8, 2008.
Calibrated Plots. The 1D Histogram plots can now have calibrated energy scales. March 2008.
Universal Binaries. Orca became a Universal Mac app in March 2008.
Header Explorer. Similar to the Data Explorer but tailored for exploring the information in the file headers of a group of runs. March 2008.