6.0

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MantidWorkbench

Table of Contents

Workbench

Overview of the new MantidWorkbench interface

This release sees the introduction of a brand new graphical user interface, MantidWorkbench, which will eventually replace MantidPlot. The workbench has been built from the ground up to allow more automated testing in an effort to vastly improve on the stability of MantidPlot.

Key goals:

  • matplotlib-based plotting: Matplotlib is the defacto-standard plotting package for the scientific community and one of its core goals is to produce publication-quality plots
  • cleaner interface: MantidPlot had many toolbars, buttons and menus that would confuse new users. MantidWorkbench aims to have a simpler interface and removes many legacy tools that were unused from MantidPlot
  • support for high-dpi displays: Based on Qt5, allowing for improved handling of high-resolution screens such as retina displays

Features Available

The following features are available in this first release of the MantidWorkbench:

  • Workspace toolbox: Display and interact with the workspaces generated by mantid
  • Matplotlib plots: Line, errorbar and color plots from workspace menu
  • Workspace data views: Display data from MatrixWorkspace / TableWorkspace and edit TableWorkspace
  • Instrument view: Visualize an instrument attached to a workspace
  • Sample log viewer: Display information, plots and statistics about the sample logs in a workspace
  • Workspace history window: Display the algorithms that have been applied to a workspace
  • Python script editor: Edit and execute Python scripts
  • Algorithm toolbox: Choose algorithms to execute on workspaces
  • Plots toolbox: Display and interact with existing plots
  • IPython console: Immediate execution of Python commands
  • Messages window: Display mantid log messages and Python output

See the workbench documentation for complete guide to the new interface.

Future

This first release introduces features that we consider applicable to most if not all scientific areas that Mantid covers. Our development model focuses on getting useful things out to users and iterating on this feedback. However, we realise that there are key features, e.g. the slice viewer, that are missing. The following is a planned list of features that we will be continuing to develop:

  • Port of all scientific interfaces required
  • Slice Viewer/Spectrum Viewer
  • Generating a script from a plot
  • Improved tools for editing plot properties
  • Subplot (grid of plots) tools
  • Built-in help
  • About window
  • Script repository tool

There is also planned time for working on feedback that we hope to receive on this first iteration of the interface.

The date for MantidPlot to be removed from the installation has not yet been set. The removal will be announced well in advance.

Feedback

We would be grateful of any feedback on the new interface to any of the usual means of communication:

  • there is a forum thread that can be used to report feedback
  • the standard mantid-help mailing address
  • if you are at a facility then we are more than happy to come and have a chat.

Release 4.0.0