OMNeT++ 3.2 will be out soon, the last preview has been uploaded to the download area. This article shows a few user interface enhancements in the new release. There are numerous non-GUI enhancements as well, you can read about them in the distribution's WhatsNew file and in the ChangeLogs.

Tkenv

The most conspicuous enhancement is probably the Timebar. Its time axis is scaled logarithmically, and it displays the times of future events as relative to the current simulation time. That is, position of an event indicates how much time into the future that event will occur (provided it's not cancelled or rescheduled). Events have a tooltip showing their time etc. (actually, the info() string), and can be double-clicked for inspection.

It has been a long-standing wish that the "Find/Inspect Objects" dialog became nonmodal. It has now been implemented. The window can also be kept open while the simulation is running, and repeatedly clicking the "Refresh" button will let you monitor the set of objects you're interested in.

 

It is often needed to let the simulation run until the next event in, say, one TCP module. So far, one had to open TCP's inspector for that, because the "Run until next local event" command was only available on the inspector's toolbar. Now this command has been added to the module's context menu for easy access.

 

It is now possible to adapt the generic Tkenv GUI to the needs of specific simulation models. One can extend the context menu with items specific to the simulation model, such as "Inspect routing table". The description of the new menu items (and the place where they appear) should be put into a Tkenv plugin, which is a .tcl file in the plugins subdirectory of the simulation (or anywhere in the Tkenv plugin path).

  

GNED

GNED has seen quite a number of enhancements, mostly owing to Michael Franzen who sent several patches. Unfortunately, many of them (such as the "Autoextend gates using gate++ notation", "Auto-calculate gate vector sizes", "Set 'nocheck' for new modules" options) are not graphical in nature so they cannot be shown here, but the "Open imported files automatically" option can.

When turned on (as by default) and you open a NED file, it tries to recursively open all imported NED files as well. (It takes care that every NED file is opened only once.) This has the significance that you can double-click on any submodule to go into them or see their specifications, you can drag&drop modules from the tree on the left onto the canvas, and GNED's will know what gates every module type has, so it can help you edit connections in the Connection Properties dialog. To support large models like the INET Framework, an "import path" can be specified, which is a list of directories where imported files are searched for.

 

Plove

The plot configuration dialog has become a lot more usable and powerful. For example, you can now select options such as symbol or connection method individually for each series. Settings can also be saved as default, which was also a feature many times asked for.

The exact coordinates of data points are now displayed next to the crosshair cursor.

There have been several internal fixes and enhancements as well, mainly on the filters, but again this is something that cannot be shown on a screenshot. Many thanks to Michael Tüxen who sent patches and gave suggestions for improving Plove.

Hope you'll enjoy working with the new release of OMNeT++.