1.4.rst

# The main GUI program

Start Applications->Education->ExpEYES-17 from the menu. A four channel oscilloscope screen with several extra features will open as shown in the figure. Various experiments can be selected from the menu.

The ExpEYES-17 main GUI

The main window looks like a low frequency four channel oscilloscope, with some extra features, on the right side panel. Applications for various experiments can be selected from the pulldown menu. A brief description of the oscilloscope program is given below.

- Any of the four inputs (A1, A2, A3 or MIC) can be enabled using the corresponding checkbox. The input range can be selected by clicking on the menubutton on the right side of the checkbox. Select the desired input range from the popup menu.
- There is another checkbox, to enable mathematical fitting of the data using V=V0sin(2πft+θ) +C to show the amplitude and frequency.
- The horizontal scale (time base) can be changed by a slider, from .5 mS fullscale to 500 mS full scale.
- The Checkbutton Freeze, allows to pause and resume the oscilloscope operation.
- The Trigger level can be set by a slider, and there is a menubutton to select the trigger source.
- To save the traces to a file, edit the filename and click on the SaveTo button.
- Clicking on FFT shows the frequency spectrum of all the eneabled channels, appears on popup windows.

In addition to the Oscilloscope, there are several measurement/control options available on the GUI, they are explained below.

- If selected, the voltages at the inputs A1, A2 and A3 are sampled every second and displayed.
- The resistance connected between SEN and Ground is measured and displayed every second.
- Clicking Capacitance on IN1, measures the value of the capacitor connected between IN1 and GND.
- Clicking Frequency on IN2, measures the frequency of an external digital (TTL standard) pulse connected to IN2
- The shape of the waveform can be selected using the menubutton, default shape is sine. It can be changed to triangular. When the square wave option is selected, the output is shifted to SQ2. You cannot have sine/triangular and SQ2 at the same time.
- Frequency of the Waveform generator WG can be set using the slider or the text entry window. The two input methods follow each other, changing the slider will change the text field and entering data using text field will set the slider to that value. The frequency will be set to the nearest possible value and it will be displayed in the message window at the bottom. The amplitude of WG output can be set to 3 volts, 1 volt or 80 mV.
- SQ1 can be set using the same method as explained above. The duty cycle can be set between 1% to 99%, default is 50%.
- The programmable volages PV1 and PV2 are also set in a similar manner.
- Checkbuttons are provided to control OD1 and CCS.

# The top menu of the Main Window

The top of the window contains a menu to change the current experimental setup: every entry in this menu is a category of experiments, like School experiments, Electronics, Electrical, and so on... except the leftmost entry "Device", which contains special commands.

## The Device submenus

When one triggers the "Device" menu, new submenus appear:

- Reconnect: try to synchronize the computer and Eyes17 after a reconnection.
- Light Background: allows one to use a light background to display the traces. Any selected experiment is forgotten, and the default user interface is re-initialised instead.
- Dark Background: it is the same, but one gets a dark background to display the traces.
- Choose language: this allows one to select the language for the user interface and for the help files.
- Screen shot: one can take a snapshot from the complete Graphic User Interface, or just from the oscilloscope's display (respective keyboard shortcuts are Alt-S and Alt-P). In the special case when English language and Dark Background are set, an additional dialog will let one create automatically a set of snapshots translated to every language supported by Eyes17, on dark and on light backgrounds, in SVG (vectorial) and PNG (pixmap) formats. This feature is rather fast, and it can generate a lot of data. One can dismiss it easily.
- Credits: this opens a window with credits for authors and contributors of ExpEYES-17.