Simulation Examples for the Booting Utility of Storage Systems

4.1 Simulation Examples for the Booting Utility of Storage Systems

Before implement the simulation and application examples, we define the MMI requirement specification for them in Figure 21. We simply define four menus to demonstrate the basic functions for MMIs of storage systems.

Figure 21. MMI Requirement Specification for Simulation and Application Examples

The usage scenario of this system is as below description. The first menu is main menu that contains some nodes, but only two nodes are functional. They are the node

“Controller Information” and “Physical Drive Management”. When users press the node

“Controller Information”, it will pop up the menu “Controller Information” that displays the information of adapter controller. When users press the node “Physical Drive Management”, it will pop up the menu “Physical Drive Management” that has a table lists present physical hard disk drives. When users want to read the information of certain physical hard disk drive, they can press it and the menu “Physical Drive Information” will pop up.

To implement this simulation example for the Booting Utility of storage systems, we follow the steps in section 3.1 Visual MMI Development for Storage Systems.

Step 1) MMI designers use Visual Authoring Tool to compose wanted MMIs according to MMI requirement documents. We compose wanted MMIs in Visual Authoring Tool -- Inkscape. In figure 22, we compose the screen layout first, because it is the root layer.

Figure 22. Compose Screen Layout by Inkscape

The first row of the screen layout is the screen title, and the second row in dark gray background color is Navigation Bar (NaviBar). In this bar, we can display the hierarchy of active menus, e.g. “Main Menu > Physical Drive Management > Physical Drive Information”.

The bottom row of screen is Message Bar (MsgBar). In this bar, we can display messages, e.g.

the brief hint of hot keys. The rows between NaviBar and MsgBar are the canvas that we can place menus.

Step 2) Save the results of Visula Authoring Tool as SVG Files. In default setting, Inkscape saves files in SVG format. Figure 23 illustrates a partial SVG file in plain text.

Figure 23. SVG File in Plain Text

Step 3) To speed up the development of MMIs, we can create Template SVG Files for MMI designers. We compose the Template SVG File in figure 24 with Menu Template (layer_MenuTemplate) that has key elements for each layer of menu.

Figure 24. Compose the Template SVG File

These key elements are Navi Bar, Menu, Node, and Msg Bar. Navi Bar is a row for navigation, and it displays the hierarchy of active menus. Menus include menu title, heads of items, contents of items, and nodes. Nodes are special text elements with the ability to combine the function and child menu together. If users select one node in the running time, it will take the related function and then pop up its child menu. Msg Bar is a row to display messages or hints for users. For example, we can list hot keys for active menu particularly.

Using the layer of Menu Template (layer_MenuTemple) in the Template SVG file, MMI designers can compose the wanted menus quickly. Figure 25 illustrates three menus were been composed by using the layer_MenuTemple: Main Menu (layer_1_MainMenu), Physical Drive Management Menu (layer_2_PdMng), and Physical Drive Information Menu (layer_3_PdInfo), and other menu layers are hidden: Controller Information Menu (layer_2_CtrlInfo), Menu Template (layer_9_MenuTemplate), and Debug Layer (layer_9_Debug). In the right bottom corner of figure 25, the Layer Manger of Inkscape can control these layers.

[ String of menu title ]

String of head : String of content

String of node

Figure 25. Compose Menus by Using the layer_MenuTemple

Step 4) For developers or customers, they can preview these SVG Files in web browsers. During the Visual Authoring Process, we can use web browser to preview SVG files. In order to let web browser displays texts in SVG files correctly, we have to set texts as Unflow. In Inkscape, select wanted texts and choose the function: Text > Unflow.

Step 5) MMI programmers add additional information in SVG Files. We use the XML Editor of Inkscape to edit the SVG elements, and give the meaningful names and attributes for MMI elements in Menu Template (layer_MenuTemplate). For instance, we give layer_1_MainMenu as the name of main menu layer, and the attribute of layer_2_CtrlInfo as the child menu for node node_CtrlInfo. This means that users press the node of node_CtrlInfo, and Generic MMI Engine will display the MMI elements in layer_2_CtrlInfo.

[ Physical Drive Information ]

Physical Drive ID : String of cont_PdId…………..

Model Name : String of cont_PdModel…….. 123 | 12345678901234567890 | 1234567890 | 12345 - | - | - | -

Step 6) Use SVG Parser to transform SVG Files to MMI Data. After we save the results in SVG files, we can use SVG Parser to generate MMI Data for Generic MMI Engine automatically. The output of SVG Parser is MmiData.h, and the following example is a partial code of MmiData.h.

/* MmiData.h - Generated by SVG Parser. Don't edit this file directly! */

CREATE_SCREEN(screen_BiosCU) CREATE_NAVI(navi_MainMenu, 8, 35, COLOR_B_WHITE, "> Main Menu") CREATE_RECT(rect_MainMenuShadow, 28, 85, 285, 154, COLOR_BLACK) CREATE_RECT(rect_MainMenuBody, 17, 63, 286, 159, COLOR_BLUE) CREATE_EDGE(edge_MainMenuBorder, 20, 67, 281, 154, COLOR_B_WHITE) CREATE_TITLE(title_MainMenu, 31, 91, COLOR_B_WHITE, "[ Main Menu ]") CREATE_NODE(node_CtrlInfo, 33, 110, COLOR_YELLOW, layer_2_CtrlInfo, according to functional requirement documents. We write the related functions for MMIs.

For each Node MMI element, MMI programmers have to add the related functions into MmiAct and MmiSub modules of Generic MMI Engine. For example, we write the MmiAct_CtrlInfo( ) function to get information of controller for node_CtrlInfo, and the MmiAct_PdMng( ) function to get a list of physical hard disk drives for node_PdMng, etc.

Step 8) Generate the target MMI applications with MMI Data, Generic MMI Engine, Management API and OS dependent API. To simplify the complexity of demonstrations, we use two definitions to configure Generic MMI Engine. First, define USE_MNG_API to indicate if it needs to invoke Management API or not. Second, define DRIVER_SIMULATOR to indicate if it simulates the reactions of driver by itself or not.

If we set USE_MNG_API to OFF, Generic MMI Engine displays MMI Data directly.

All the messages and texts are the same as the ones in Visual Authoring Tool. If we set USE_MNG_API to ON, Generic MMI Engine invokes the functions of Management API, and these functions submit related commands to driver directly.

If we set DRIVER_SIMULATOR to ON, the code of Driver Simulator in Generic MMI Engine takes actions to simulate reactions of real driver. If we set DRIVER_SIMULATOR to OFF, the real driver is required to pass commands to Embedded Firmware of storage systems.

In the simulation example, figure 26 demonstrates the Booting Utility of storage systems in the DOS Prompt of Windows OS.

Figure 26. Simulation Examples for the Booting Utility of Storage Systems

In the case one of simulation examples, we set USE_MNG_API to OFF and DRIVER_SIMULATOR to ON. The utility will display MMI Data directly.

In the case two of simulation examples, we set USE_MNG_API to ON and DRIVER_SIMULATOR to ON. The utility will display imitative information from the Driver Simulator in Generic MMI Engine.