Panel Name

fwTrendingPlotConfPanel.pnl

Introduction

This panel is used to create or modify Trending Plots. A Trending Plot is a trending display that can show up to 8 curves.

Instructions

When creating a new plot, you should first enter a Plot Name and Plot Title in the corresponding fields. The Plot Name will be used as the data point name of the plot configuration. This is the name used to refer to the plot configuration in CTRL scripts. The Plot Title is intended to be a more descriptive text which explains the data shown or the purpose of the plot. The Plot Title can be useful to help identify which plot is which when browsing through lists of plots.

Then you specify the general characteristics of the plot, such as the X axis time range, the foreground and background colours. There are also settings to choose if you want to show the default PVSS legend (not selected by default), have a grid to help read the trend of if you want a logrithmic Y scale.

Next there are 8 rows of settings which represent each of the 8 curves on the plot. You can fill in whichever and however many rows you wish. To set a curve, you first choose a row and then enter the data point element to be plotted on DP Element. You can type this manually in the first column or choose it from the data point selector by pressing the "..." button. Once you have chosen a data point element, the "Text" column under Legend will automatically be filled in with a text. You can change this text as you wish. You can change the format of the value appearing on the legend by pressing the "..." button. Note that the format is updated only when the value of the curve changes.

After this you can set some parameters of the Curve such as colour, line style and curve visibility. To choose a curve colour you should press the coloured square and a colour picker will appear. You can pick a line type from any of the options in the combo box. These are Points, Steps or Linear. An additional option called Individual is available in the 9th row (see below). To toggle the visibility of the curve, you can press the button with the eye on it. When the eye is crossed out that curve is invisible, and when not crossed out the curve will be visible. You can plot the alarm limits of the curve by checking the box "Limits". In this way, if the dpe has analog alarm defined, the value of each limit appears on the trend as a dashed line. Note that it works only with analog alarms and it shows only the limits currently set (no historical limits).

Next, you can control the Y Axis for each curve. You can set the visibility (again pressing a button to toggle the visibility) and can choose automatic scaling (by checking the "Auto" checkbox) or manually selected min and max curve limits. The scale can be placed on the left ("L") or on the right side ("R") of the trend. You can do this by clicking on the radio box "L" or "R". The scale can be linked to the scale of another curve. Example: you link curve 1 to curve 2. If you scroll the scale of curve 1, the scale of curve 2 will scroll following the scale of curve 1. In order to link a scale, select on the "Link" list the index of the curve to be linked to. The scale values can be formatted by clicking on the "..." button under "Format".

Finally, the column Archive shows if an archiving config exists for the selected data point. If you have sufficient user permissions, you can also click the "..." button to view and adjust the archiving configuration.

To speed up the configuration of many curves, on Global Settings for this plot there is a 9th row which can be used to set some settings for all 8 curves at the same time. These include the curve line type, curve visibility, scale visibility and the Y scale range (manual and automatic). By changing these settings in the 9th row, the other 8 rows will be immediately updated. Selecting the line type of the curve in the 9th row allows you to set all 8 curves to one of the supported types (Points, Steps, Linear) or alternatively you can select the Individual option. This lets you choose a different line type for each of the 8 curves individually.

In this row, you can also choose the plot "marker type". By default this will be a filled circle - this setting draws a small dot for each point of data that is drawn in the plot. One option is to show no marker at all in which case you only see the curve with no special marking for each point of data.

Note: There are some considerations when choosing the marker type:

  1. If you selected the curve type "Points" then you should not select marker type "None". This would result in seeing neither the curve, nor the points. You would see nothing.
  2. If you think you will have many thousands of points visible on the plot, then it is recommended to use marker type "None". This makes the display clearer and also avoids a problem associated with high CPU load when showing many plot markers on the plot at the same time.

On the same row, you can the plot "Line" stile, as, for example, the thickness.

You do not need to fill every curve in the plot. Once you have filled all the required positions on the plot, you should save the plot by clicking OK or Apply. Clicking Cancel will close the panel without saving the plot. The Save as... button can be used to save the displayed plot configuration to another data point.

If you are modifying an existing plot, you will have all the options as above except that the Plot Name will not be modifyable.

If you wish, you can use a template parameter in the Plot Title, DP Element and Legend Text. A template parameter is defined by placing the variable name between curly brackets, { }. So the Plot Title could be HVChannels{myVariable}. Where {myVariable} is substituted by another value at a later time.

Restrictions The Plot Name is used as the data point name of the Plot. As this is the case, it must not include any characters not allowed in PVSS data point names.

 

Panel screenshot

 

 

Dollar Parameters
Name Description  
$sDpName

Data point name of the Plot to edit.

If creating a new plot, set this value to an empty string.

Required
$Command

Mode in which the panel is to run. The keyword to pass should be one of the following:

"new" - for creating a new plot data point. Pressing OK or Apply saves the new configuration to the given data point. The plot dp name field is editable.

"edit" - for editing an existing plot data point. Pressing OK or Apply saves the new configuration to the given data point. The plot dp name field is not editable.

"onlineedit" - used from the plot display panel to modify the configuration without modifying the data point. Pressing OK returns the new plot configuration to the panel from which it was opened. The plot dp name field is not editable.

If this $-parameter is not defined, the panel runs in "edit" mode, unless $sDpName is blank in which case the mode is "new".

Optional
$dsShowButtons

Controls which of the OK, Apply and Cancel buttons are shown at runtime.

The keywords for the buttons are "ok", "apply" and "cancel". The value passed in the $-parameter should be a dyn_string containing a list of the buttons to show, e.g. makeDynString("ok", "cancel"). The keywords are case insensitive.

If this $-parameter is not defined, all three buttons are shown.

Optional

(except when using addSymbol() - see below)

Note: The optional $-parameters mentioned above must be passed if you are displaying this panel with the addSymbol() function. If you do not pass all $-parameters when using addSymbol(), errors will be given in your porject log and the functionality of the panel may not be as expected.