Java Analysis Studio is an application for High Energy Physics data analysis. It allows analysis of data from a wide range of data sources including PAW ntuples, SQL databases, flat files, hippo files, and Objectivity databases. Java Analysis Studio is a client-server based application, allowing desktop access to data stored anywhere on the internet. The network protocol is optimized to allow rapid access to data even over slow network connections.
Java Analysis Studio provides an easy to use graphical user interface. Users can in addition write analysis modules using the Java Language, using a set of histogramming utilities provided as part of Java Analysis Studio. See the built-in tutorial for more information on writing analysis modules.
There have been many improvments and bug fixes in this release of JAS. Some of the more important changes are:
The core of JAS is written entirely in Java and should work on any platform with Java JDK 1.1.8 or more recent installed. We provide binary distributions for Windows, Linux and Solaris, but the compiled Java code (.jar) files are identical in all distributions and should work on any platform.
The only parts of JAS which are not pure Java are the standard extensions for reading PAW files, Hippo files and StdHep files. (We now have a pure java implementation of StdHep, and will soon eliminate the non-Java code for this data format).
The windows distribution of JAS contains a version of the Java runtime environment and so requires no other software. JAS should work on Windows 95/98/NT or 2000, although windows NT or 2000 is recommended.
The unix releases of JAS require that you have previously installed a version of the Java JDK. JAS should work with JDK 1.1.8, JDK 1.2.2 or JDK 1.3, but see the notes on specific platform below. For best results when printing, JDK 1.3 is recommended.
The source code for JAS can be found on the JAS Source Code page.
JAS has been tested under RH 6.1 and 6.2 using the IBM JDK 1.1.8 and both the IBM and Sun JDK 1.3. Some Linux distributions install the Kaffe virtual machine as the default implementation of Java. JAS will not work with Kaffe.
There are several problems when using JDK 1.2 or JDK 1.3 under Linux. Some window managers are incompatible with these Java distributions, resulting in several strange effects, including semi-blank windows, window manager decoration around popup menus, and missing buttons on dialogs. The fvwm2 window manager seems to have the worst problems. Recent versions of GNOME or KDE seem to work OK.
In addition JDK 1.2 and 1.3 give extremely poor performance when displaying to a remote X display (this si rumoured to be fixed later in 2001 when JD 1.4 is released) We recommend using JAS only with a local X display (i.e. run JAS on the machine on your desktop). Java had additional problems working through a SSH tunneled X connection (Java thinks the display is local and tries to use the MIT shared memory extensions). To work around this "setenv NO_AWT_MITSHM true".
Sun provides 2 versions of Java for Solaris, the Solaris "reference" implementation, and the so-called "production" implementation. The reference implementation does not include a Just-in-time compiler and will not give good performance with JAS. For this reason you should try to use a recent production release of Java.
(Starting with JDK 1.3 the reference and production versions of Java for Solaris have been merged).
JAS for windows is now distributed as a Microsoft Installer module (filetype .msi). If are using Windows 2000, or have installed Office 2000, you should be able to install JAS simply by double-clicking on the file. If you are using a older version of windows, and double-clicking on the file does not work you will first need to install the Microsoft installer for your platform. These can be downloaded here:
Some people have reported problems installing JAS for Windows on Japanese versions on Windows. The same problem may occur with other non-US versions of Windows. The problem stems from the version of Java installed with JAS. To work around the problem, make sure you have a working Java JDK installed on your machine, and then delete the jre directory below the JAS installation directory. This will force JAS to use the default Java on your machine instead of the built-in version.
The following are still many things on our to-do list. Please feel free to suggest others that should be added. The following are the most serious known bugs.
The JAS home page is at: http://jas.freehep.org/. You can sign up for, or browse the archives of the JAS mailing list at the JAS mailing list page.
Apart from the people listed on the Authors page, many other people have made contributions to JAS, including: Gary Bower, Mark Donszelmann, Glenn Goderre, Fred Gray, Joy Kyriakopulos, Kevin Rennert, Mike Ronan, Alex Samuel, Vector Serbo and Bob Wilson