Advanced light microscopy methods are key to many biological studies. Their ease of use depends, besides experimental aspects, on intuitive graphical user interfaces (GUI). The open-source software Micro-Manager offers a universal GUI for microscope control but requires implementing plugins to further tailor it to specific systems. However, GUIs are often tailored to a single system. Since even similar devices can have different Micro-Manager device properties, such as power percentage versus absolute power, directly transferring a GUI to another instrument usually requires changing the source-code. We developed Easier Micro-Manager User interface (EMU), a Micro-Manager plugin, to simplify building flexible and reconfigurable GUIs. EMU can be seamlessly used with the Java Swing library to create device-independent GUIs for Micro-Manager. Such GUIs are easily transferred to another microscope thanks to an intuitive configuration menu that includes mapping of the device properties to the GUI functionalities and customization of the graphical elements. We also provide resources such as user and programming guides, a tutorial and code examples. Micro-Manager users now have a powerful tool to improve the user experience on their instruments. EMU GUIs can be easily configured for new microscopes and shared with other research groups. In the future, newly developed GUIs will be added to EMU to benefit the whole community.

中文翻译：

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EMU：微管理器的可重新配置图形用户界面


先进的光学显微镜方法是许多生物学研究的关键。除了实验方面之外，它们的易用性还取决于直观的图形用户界面（GUI）。开源软件 Micro-Manager 提供了用于显微镜控制的通用 GUI，但需要实施插件以进一步针对特定系统进行定制。然而，GUI 通常是针对单个系统定制的。由于即使相似的设备也可能具有不同的微管理器设备属性，例如功率百分比与绝对功率，因此将 GUI 直接传输到另一台仪器通常需要更改源代码。我们开发了更简单的微管理器用户界面 (EMU)，这是一个微管理器插件，用于简化构建灵活且可重新配置的 GUI。 EMU 可以与 Java Swing 库无缝使用，为 Micro-Manager 创建与设备无关的 GUI。由于直观的配置菜单（包括设备属性到 GUI 功能的映射以及图形元素的定制），此类 GUI 可以轻松转移到另一台显微镜。我们还提供用户和编程指南、教程和代码示例等资源。 Micro-Manager 用户现在拥有一个强大的工具来改善其仪器的用户体验。 EMU GUI 可以轻松配置用于新显微镜并与其他研究小组共享。未来，新开发的GUI将被添加到EMU中，以使整个社区受益。