Appendix A. Jadex Remote Monitoring Agent

JADE is distributed with a graphical control center called Remote Monitoring Agent (RMA). An extended version of the RMA is included with Jadex. The class of the agent isjadex.adapter.jade.tools.rma. The Jadex RMA is mainly a clone of the JADE RMA (cf. Figure A.1, “Jadex RMA Main Window”). The extended RMA provides shortcut icons for starting the new tool agents:

Jadex RMA Main Window

Figure A.1. Jadex RMA Main Window

A.1. Start New Agent Dialog

The main difference to the JADE RMA is the new dialog for starting agents (seeFigure A.2, “Agent Start Dialog”). With the Jadex RMA, an agent definition file (ADF) can be selected for execution. This ADF is supplied either by entering the file name in the Model (ADF) textfield, or by selecting the file from a file requester ( Browse... button). The configuration choice box contains all available start configuration of the loaded agent. After loading the default configuration is automatically selected. The other start parameters ( Agent Name, Class Name, Arguments, Container) are the same as in the JADE RMA.

Agent Start Dialog

Figure A.2. Agent Start Dialog

When loading an agent model from an ADF, the agent name and agent class values are filled in automatically. In addition to the Ok and Cancel buttons for starting the agent or aborting the dialog, the Jadex RMA has three more buttons: Reload will read again the currently specified agent model (ADF), e.g. after you have edited the file to correct errors. The Jadex RMA keeps a list of recently loaded agents (stored in a file called rma.properties). This list can be cleared with the Reset button. The Description > button allows viewing a description (see below) of the loaded agent model, before launching the agent.

When an error occurs while loading an agent model, the error message is also displayed below the start parameters in the Description panel. In addition, the panel keeps available the tabs of the last loaded agent models.