unCoreInternals 9.3.0
unDeviceTreeOverview Functionality Documentation

Introduction

The UNICOS Device Tree Overview can be accessed by clicking on the unDeviceTreeOverview button in the HMI. See screenshot below:

unDeviceTreeOverview button and initialization

There are two different areas that can be described separately: The Device Selection, and the Device Overview.

Device Selection

unDeviceTreeOverview Device Selection

The device selection is displayed in the left part of the panel. It is formed by the following parts:

The Select Filter

It is used to select the values for each field of the filter that should be considered when displaying the list of existing devices. The devices can be filtered by Data Server (or System), Front-End type, Application, Device type, Domain, Nature, and Alias. For each of these fields, the next value options can be selected when clicking on their corresponding downward arrow: The ‘Don’t filter’ to remove the filter configuration of the particular field, the asterisk ‘*’, which acts as the wildcard character, to display all values of the field, the ‘List…’ to select one or more values, and a single specific value (for example ‘P4_42:’ for Data Server, if we would only like to see the list of devices of the P4_42 system). Additionally, the checkboxes for each field can be checked/unchecked to apply or remove a particular predefined filter option. By default, the filter fields are unchecked, but if they are checked, the asterisk is selected as default. The Alias field is different from the others, as there is not a single specific value that can be selected in advance, and the ‘List…’ option invokes a different pop-up panel to choose an alias to do the filtering.

The Display by Filter

It can be considered a part of the select filter as each checkbox under the Display by section correspond to an option of the Select Filter, i.e., the first checkbox corresponds to Data Server, the second to Front-End, etc. These Display by filter checkboxes only affect how the device tree schema is displayed below. For example, if the checkbox which corresponds to Data Server is checked, the device tree schema will not be displayed as a list with all the devices, but like devices that belong to groups or folders, depending on the value specified on the Data Server field. Which this means is that the Display by filter effectively builds the representation of the tree schema. The depth of the tree depends on the number of checkboxes that have been checked for each corresponding option. An example can be seen in the image below:

unDeviceTreeOverview Select and Display by filters

The Alias field does not have a ‘Display by’ checkbox associated to it, as the option cannot be used to further divide the list of devices into groups or subgroups as the alias is the minimum single unit.

The Filter buttons

There are a few buttons related to the filter:

  • The folder button, which opens a pop-up panel with previously defined filter configurations to be loaded in the Device selection filter.
  • The save disk button, which allows the user to save the current filter configuration. Saving a filter configuration can only be done if the user that is logged in in the HMI has the appropriate access rights
  • The advanced filter, that basically allows the user to specify the filter options as the Select filter, but with an optimal user interface (it allows to define a filter with less clicks, so more efficiently).
  • The reload button, that forces to rebuild the device tree schema
  • The apply button, which takes into consideration the values specified in the filter and generates a device tree overview.

Device Tree Schema

The Device Tree Schema white space is used to display the device tree overview according to the Select and Display by Filter options specified. The folders, groups, subgroups and devices can be left clicked, double clicked or right clicked, and depending on the group level, different options and displays will be shown. If one of the groups is selected by left clicking, the list of devices will be displayed on the Device Overview part in the center-right side of the panel. Device’s faceplates can be opened when double clicking on the devices in the tree. The menu list of a device can be opened when right clicking on it. Front-end groups can be right clicked to check diagnostic, configuration, and trends as well.

Filtered in Button

It shows the number of devices in the device tree overview from the number of total existing devices that belong to a particular system (or Data Server). The system to check the number of devices in the tree schema can be changed in the cascade button. This widget is only used for informational purposes, and it does not act as a filter.

Load Waiting Bar Widget

it indicates the progress of the loading process before the device tree overview is displayed in the panel.

Device Overview

unDeviceTreeOverview Device Overview

The Device Overview section is in the center and right part of the panel. It shows information related to the list of devices that have been selected from the tree. There are two tabs in the device overview which show the additional device information in different ways: the Widget tab, which shows the widget representation of the device or front end, and the Snapshot tab, which shows the information about the devices in a table with different columns fields and values.

Widget Tab

unDeviceTreeOverview Widget Tab

As it was mentioned in the previous section, the Widget tab displays the representation of the widget for the devices according to the selected group/subgroup in the Device tree overview. From this representation, the user can select a device (or front-end) by left clicking, open the faceplate by double clicking, or open the menu list with the options for a device by right clicking. In case that all the devices that should be displayed do not fit in one single page in the panel, the user can go forward or backward by clicking on the arrows or on the device number cascade button on the top right corner of the panel to change the page.

Snapshot Tab

unDeviceTreeOverview Snapshot Tab

In the Snapshot tab, the list of devices is shown in a table where the values for different column fields can be observed. In the top of the panel there are filter values that can be selected. If the Filter button is clicked a new popup panel is invoked, and the user can select the Device Type and Bit names to filter the results. The selected values for the Filter are displayed in the top of the panel. The folder and disk buttons are used to load a previously defined filter configuration or save the current filter configuration respectively. There are a few other buttons to interact with such as: the Reload button to refresh the list of devices in the table, the Print table button, and the Export to CSV button. The table with information about devices is the most important part of the Snapshot tab. The list contains the columns fields: Device Type, Application, Alias, Description, Domain, Nature, Value, UTC time, Local time, State, Inv, F (Faceplate), S (Synoptic). If the Faceplate and Synoptic exist for a particular device, they can be selected by left clicking on them (the click must be done in the Faceplate or Synoptic column and the row that belongs to the device). Right clicking can be done in each row, independently of the column where the right click is performed, to open the menu list option of a device (or front end). The View and Config options can only be observed when right clicking from the Snapshot tab and affect the display of the whole table rather than the device. The View option is used to show or hide columns of the table. The Config option is used to alter the order (Re-order columns) and save or load defined order configurations of the columns displayed in the table. The Device name that is part of the menu list option when right clicking on a row does not provide any functionality, it is just used to provide the device name that has been right clicked as reference for users. At the bottom of the panel, there is a loading bar which shows the progress of the loading process when building the list of devices in the table of the Snapshot tab.

Dynamic update

The device tree overview is automatically updated when devices are added or removed from the importation process using the Import Database (local) panel. In case that there are distributed systems defined, if a new system is connected and the project for this system is running, the device tree overview is automatically updated as well. However, if the mentioned project is stopped, the devices do not disappear, but become automatically non-selectable changing the color to purple, indicating that they are not connected anymore.