The Multi-Variable Monitor

The Multi-Variable Monitor (MVM) is a generalized monitoring application. It allows Flightdeck-UI to be used with little or no programming. MVM can be used to remind you that the year-end holidays are approaching, indicate that you are working overtime, display the current weather conditions, show information about your computer, etc.

MVM includes a graphical editor with theme support. Control files that configure what MVM will monitor are created and modified with the built-in graphical editor. A screenshot of the editor window is shown below. It applies the idea of flattening hierarchies (see Flattening Hierarchies), so that the user does not have to search for features amongst nested menus and dialog boxes.

Theme files are plain ASCII text, and can be changed with any text editor. Because control files are also ASCII text, it is possible to use a text editor to work with them as well.

MVM also has a minimized run mode, which is designed to take up as little room on the screen as possible. Command line options are available that will start MVM in its minimized run mode, so that it can be configured to always appear on the desktop upon startup. Shown below are 4 screenshots of MVM run modes. These run modes were generated from the same control file, but with different themes loaded (except for the vertically-oriented one, which shows the default theme on a different control file). Any run mode can be made to display in either the horizontal or vertical orientation.

Here are two more MVM run modes, showing the outdoor temperature around the U.S. (in Fahrenheit), and Europe (in Celsius).

MVM allows the author of a control file or theme to add their name, etc. to the file using any text editor. This information then shows up in the "About" dialog box. An example appears below.

In the future, there will be a separate manual and a whitepaper for MVM. A brief manual is already included included in the README-MVM.TXT that comes with the distribution. You can also read this file online.