Medsphere's open source release of OpenVista CIS allows you to download, examine, build, run, and modify the application. One of the easiest ways to manipulate the codebase is to use an integrated development environment (IDE). On Linux, the MonoDevelop project offers a fully functional open source IDE. You should be able to install MonoDevelop using your GNU/Linux distribution's package manager.

Next, you'll need to download the OpenVista CIS code. All of Medsphere's open source code is available from sourceforge.net. The list of available code archives can be found here. Although archives of specific subsections of the the codebase are offered, as well as a few different formats, this tutorial describes using the .zip file containing the entire codebase. You can download the current version (0.9.9) by clicking here.

Now, you'll extract the source tree from the file you've downloaded. There are a few ways to do this. From the command line, we can cd into the directory that contains the .zip file and run the following command:

$ unzip openvistacis-0.9.9.zip

This will create a directory called openvistacis-0.9.9 that contains the source code and configuration information of the project. You may also be able to extract the file using your desktop environment. For example, in the GNOME desktop, you can right click on the file and select ""Extract Here" from the context menu as shown:

Extracting the archive creates a new directory. In the top level of this new directory you will find a file named OpenVista.mds. This is the MonoDevelop solution file. You can open this file in a few ways. You can invoke MonoDevelop from the command line:

$ monodevelop OpenVista.mds

Depending on your desktop environment, you may also be able to double click the OpenVista.mds file to start MonoDevelop. Finally, you can open the file from within MonoDevelop by choosing "Open..." from MonoDevelop's "File" menu, or by clicking "Open a Solution / File" from the MonoDevelop welcome screen.

Once you've opened the solution file, you'll see the list of assemblies that comprise the OpenVista CIS codebase.

There are three executables contained within the OpenVista CIS project source tree.

1. OpenVista CIS, the main client GUI.

2. OpenVista Vitals, the vital signs functionality from CIS, deployable as a standalone application.

3. Bridge, a middleware layer that handles RPC communication with the VistA Broker and provides a Binary Remoting interface to the client.

The most straightforward method of running OpenVista CIS is to connect to the Bridge running on the OpenVista Public Demo server. To do this, you won't need to run your own Bridge locally, or the OpenVista Vitals app. To prevent MonoDevelop from starting these applications, right click on the first/top row of the Solution list and select "Options" from the context menu.

From the list on the left of the "Solution Options" dialog, select "Startup Properties". You'll notice that the "Multiple Startup Project" radio button is active. Since you only want to start OpenVista CIS, activate the "Single Startup Project" radio button and choose "OpenVistaCIS" from the menu underneath. Click "OK" when you are finished.

NOTE: Due to a minor bug in MonoDevelop 1.0, when you select "Startup Properties", the correct user interface may not appear. Instead, you may see the text "label5". In this case, select any of the other option categories in the list ("Solution Information" for example, and then reselect "Startup Properties".

Now we are ready to build and run OpenVista CIS from within MonoDevelop. To do this, choose "Run" from MonoDevelop's "Project" menu. You can also use the keyboard shortcut to invoke this action by pressing the F5 key. Since OpenVista CIS is a rather large program and you must build the entire tree at this time, this step may take some time. Subsequent builds only need to rebuild modified sections of the codebase, and will likely be much faster. When the build process finishes, you'll notice that two windows appear on your screen.

1. An empty terminal window titled "MonoDevelop External Console". Any output from OpenVista CIS that is sent to stdout or stderr will appear in this window. It can be a useful tool to diagnose and fix errors in the program, and to allow you to see the output of print statements you've inserted into the code.

2. The OpenVista CIS login dialog, entitled "Connect to Medsphere OpenVista Server". Note that for security purposes this window and the application will close after a period of inactivity.

To login to the OpenVista Public Demo Server as a physician user, enter "PU1234" into the Login ID entry, "PU1234! In future posts, we'll discuss how to make changes to the codebase using MonoDevelop.