Save and restore a layout

A layout records the open windows so that a control-room arrangement can be put back with one command. Pinned windows and the viewer explains how windows are opened in the first place.

Save

Arrange the windows, then use the main toolbar's ☰ menu:

  • Save layout as… names a new layout (asking before replacing one).
  • Save layout saves to the layout last loaded or saved.
  • Save as default makes it the layout bobview starts with.
  • Save default on exit (off unless ticked) saves the default each time you quit.
  • Delete layout removes one.

Restore

Pick a layout from the toolbar's layout list; this closes the display and trend windows open now. From the command line:

bobview                     # restores the default layout if there is one
bobview DISPLAY             # opens DISPLAY; the default layout is not restored
bobview --layout rf-shift   # restores layouts/rf-shift.json
bobview --layout ~/shift.json   # restores the layout in that file
bobview --no-layout         # ignores the default layout

A --layout that has a directory in it or ends in .json is a layout file's path, so a layout kept elsewhere (under version control, say) can be restored without copying it into layouts. The toolbar shows it by its file name, and Save layout writes back to that file.

--snapshot ignores layouts.

What a layout holds

For each window: its display, Eclipse project and effective macros, its position and size, whether it is pinned, and whether a display window shows its toolbar; for the main window also its zoom and whether it shows the navigator. For each trend window: its PVs (with their colours, value axes and whether they are hidden), its time range (the last so long, live, or a fixed window), its value axes' ranges, log scales and names, its position and size. The archiver is not saved in a layout: trends use bobview's (see Trend PVs). A layout from before trends showed archived history restores each trend's PVs, live over its time span, with its log scale. A layout from before windows were pinned pins them all if it was saved in multi-window mode, and none if not.

Layouts are JSON files in $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/bobview/layouts (by default ~/.config/bobview/layouts, and on Windows %APPDATA%\bobview\layouts), so they can be copied between machines or kept under version control.

Positions on Wayland and with changed monitors

A saved position that is on none of the monitors now (a laptop that was docked) is dropped and the window manager places the window.

Wayland does not let an application read or set its windows' positions, so on a Wayland desktop a layout restores the windows and their sizes but the compositor places them, and bobview logs this once. To keep positions, run bobview under XWayland:

WAYLAND_DISPLAY= bobview

X11 desktops, including bobview-ssh over X forwarding, restore positions.