AlarmScreenNg 0.9.8
Help files

Custom help files can be added to the project, and NG AS will be able to find and display them, provided that the names of files with help information and their location on disk follows some predefined rules. The rules are inherited from existing JCOP Alarm Screen in order to reuse existing help files (if any).

The very first place where searching for help file name is _string_05 attribute of _general config for DPE where alarm came from. If the attribute is set and contains non-empty string - this is assumed to be the name of file with help, and no further search is performed.

File types

NG AS will only searches for files of types, which were registered in project using dedicated panel. See also Help file types.

Search order

NG AS searches for help files under the directory HELP_REL_PATH/AlarmHelp/, futher in this section referred to as 'help root'.

The overall logic of search for help files is based on two statements:

  1. There is a natural hierarchy of items, associated with particular alarm:
    • DP type
      • DP
        • DPE <<< alarm comes here
  2. The help file for 'more specific' item shall be used (if exists) instead of help file for 'more generic' item.

One more rule which is used, but this is more JCOP-specific: description is 'more specific' than alias, which is in turn 'more specific' than name.

Taking these rules into account, the logic for searching help files to display looks rather natural. The following directories are searched (under help root!) in this order, and in every directory NG AS searches for two files (again, in this order):

Directory name File name(s)
DeviceDescriptionDPE
  1. {system_name}{dpe_description}{dpe_name}{suffix}
  2. {dpe_description}{dpe_name}{suffix}
DeviceDescription
  1. {system_name}{dp_description}{dpe_name}{suffix}
  2. {dp_description}{dpe_name}{suffix}
DeviceDescriptionDPE
  1. {system_name}{dpe_alias}{dpe_name}{suffix}
  2. {dpe_alias}{dpe_name}{suffix}
DeviceDescription
  1. {system_name}{dp_alias}{dpe_name}{suffix}
  2. {dp_alias}{dpe_name}{suffix}
DeviceDPE
  1. {system_name}{dp_name}{dpe_name}{suffix}
  2. {dp_name}{dpe_name}{suffix}
Device
  1. {system_name}{dp_name}{suffix}
  2. {dp_name}{suffix}
DeviceTypeDPE
  1. {system_name}{dp_type_name}{dpe_name}{suffix}
  2. {dp_type_name}{dpe_name}{suffix}
DeviceType
  1. system_name}{dp_type_name}{suffix}
  2. {dp_type_name}{{suffix}

Some more comments on algorithm for help file search:

  • In all file names, built according to rules above, character replacement is done before search: slash (/) and colon (:) characters are replaced with underscore (_).
  • For given combination of directory and file name, the existense of files with one of registered file types is checked before moving to next file/directory name.