Simulator Update

Hello,

Today we will be releasing an update to the CPS-VO.org codebase that will directly impact the simulator tool that is being actively used by this group.

While there are extensive changes 'under the hood' to how some pieces of the simulator operate, the main changes you should expect to see relate to the output options of the simulator.
The old output options are two check-boxes, 'Save output to VO' and 'Public'.

There will now be two select boxes:
- Output Destination
-- None (don't save outputs to the VO)
-- File Browser (this is the old behavior, and results are public to the competition group)
-- Unpublished Node (preferred, this keeps it private to you, but if you wish, you can publish it to the competition group and/or to the world at any point in the future)
-- Private File (restricted to you forever, cannot change in the future)

- Output Compression
-- tar.gz
-- tgz
-- zip

It should be noted that privacy always has the caveat that site administrators and group managers can still see and manage your files as a matter of necessity.

All results will now be compressed into a single archive before retrieval. This saves file space on the VO, can improve output transfer speed to the VO, and resolves search indexing issues on large files. You have the option to select a preferred archive format.

The naming convention of the archive has been adjusted to include the simuation run ID for ease of identification of results.

Your choice for these two select boxes will be remembered from one simulation run to the next.

You will also notice an update to the way you download your results. Depending on the output method you chose, you may have up to three output links - 'Browse' (old behavior exploring the 'Files' tab file browser), 'View' which will link you to the node containing your archive, and 'Download' which will directly initiate a download of your archived results. Note you can still delete your simulation record, which will also remove the output file from the VO.

Historic simulation runs should remain as they were and should remain accessible.

Finally, the 'Group Sims' menu tab is now sorted in descending order, so that the most recent results are at the top.

Given how extensive the changes are, there may be issues in spite of our testing. Please comment in this forum topic if you experience an issue with the simulator and we will address it as soon as possible.