Control Panel

The control panel shows what a project is doing while it runs, on one screen, and lets you stop and start it from there. It is the first place to look when something is wrong.

The dropdown at the top picks the project. Top right are a Live toggle and a refresh interval (3s, for instance): in live mode the screen refreshes itself at that rate.

Eight panels

The screen is divided into eight panels. The top row is the data path, the bottom row the project’s automation.

Panel	What it shows
Connections	Protocol connections: state, address, port
Devices	The selected connection’s devices and their scan time
Frames	The selected device’s data blocks
Variables	The selected block’s live values
Alarm Groups	Alarm groups and whether they are active
Scripts	Scripts and their run state
Data Transfers	Data transfers
Reports	Reports

The top row works as a chain: select a connection to see its devices, a device to see its frames, a frame to see its variables.

Live values

In the Variables panel each variable shows its name, description, data type, current value with its unit, and the value’s timestamp. The timestamp says when the value was read — not when the screen last refreshed. A frozen value is recognised by its timestamp.

The pencil at the right of a row writes a value. That is a control command and requires the SET_VARIABLE_VALUE permission.

A value written here goes to the field

The pencil is not a scratch pad: what you write goes out over the connection to the device. On a production project, be sure of the value before you send it.

Start and stop

The play and stop buttons in a panel’s header start and stop that kind of work in bulk; the buttons beside an individual row affect only that record.

Stopping a connection cuts the data coming from the devices beneath it — the variables hold their last values and their timestamps stop advancing.

Related

• Variables — defining a variable and its logging
• Alarm Monitor — fired alarms
• Job Monitor — scheduled work