8. Main PanelΒΆ
In the central panel, there is a tab section that allows multiple views, including a collapsed menu that reports the possible problems that have been detected on the DDS entities.
The main feature of the Fast DDS Monitor application is to graphically display the data that is being monitored in the Chart View. DDS entities have associated different types of data (so-called DataKind) that could be visualized by configuring a Chart. For example, the mean, median and standard deviation latency between two machines (Hosts) running Fast DDS applications for the period of two hours in intervals of ten minutes could be displayed.
The Fast DDS Monitor can also show the detected entities in a graph. The Domain view would filter all entities that belong to the same DDS Domain, and represent the inheritance of the physical and DDS entities (the DataWriters or DataReaders that belong to a DomainParticipant, the DomainParticipants that run on the same Process, the Processes that a User is running, and the Users that are on a Host). Those relations are represented in different boxes that contain the sub-category of entities. Also, the connections between different endpoints that are publishing or subscribed to a Topic are represented with arrows. Those arrows would start from the DataWriter and point to the Topic, or start from the Topic and point to the DataReader (showing publication and subscription cases, respectively).
Filtering that graph by Topic, only the entities whose endpoints are publishing in, or subscribed to the selected Topic would be represented in the view. The filtered graph open in a new Tab.
Additionally, one can access the data type IDL corresponding to each Topic through the Domain view.
Pressing right-click on the IDL view, a context menu appears with the options to copy the selected text from the IDL to the clipboard (or the full IDL if nothing is selected), select the full text or copy the title to the clipboard. A special situation occurs when the type is a ROS 2 type, in which case by default the type IDL and name are shown demangled. This is accompanied by a sign on the upper-right corner of the IDL view informing the user. View->Revert ROS 2 Demangling allows to revert the demangling operation, and show the IDL of the type as is received by the monitor. View->Perform ROS 2 Demangling allows to perform the demangling operation again.
If there are problems reported by a DDS entity, they are condensed by entity in the bottom layout Problem Summary section. Inside the problem counter, the problem is described and, in some cases, followed by an applicable link to the documentation.
