Here at Avanceon, we’ve been developing solutions for our customers for a long time. And in the process, we’ve run into – and solved – many “interesting” technical challenges. We’ll share some of the more generally applicable ones on this page: after all, if we already have a solution, why should you have to develop your own?
Finding anything in an Intouch Application
Full Info
Issue:
User is unable to figure out how / where things happen in InTouch
Resolution:
Cross reference is an awesome tool to use that will show you anywhere a tag is used (whether that’s on a script, in an animation somewhere, etc.).
It’s super handy and the latest versions can sort by different things (like Window Name) so you can easily see how many (and which) windows a certain tag appears on. Just make sure you use “Special -> Update Use Counts” first, so that the application reindexes / finds everything so that the cross-reference is accurate. You can skip this step, but the cross-reference will be only as good as when you last ran the Update Use Counts.
What if you’re searching for an indirect name build or screen call or something else that isn’t directly tag based? By using “File -> Print in WindowMaker,” you can print out every single object, script, call, graphic, etc. and do a text search for whatever you are looking for.
If you want everything, make sure you select every possible checkbox and inclusive radio button option, or you can pick just certain screens, scripts, etc. you want to search through.
From there InTouch will look to the locally installed printers for the output. I would recommend installing some kind of text-based printer driver so that you can print to a text file and do a simple search that way. Unfortunately, printing to PDF produces a graphic instead of text, rendering the words unsearchable. You can also pick the HTML option at the bottom; it just puts each window, etc. in its own HTML file. It will create the one you name as the main file and then have links to all of the ones it created. In this manner you have to search each individual HTML file as opposed to just one big text file with the text printer driver.
From there you can search for your Window name or “.name =” or “Galaxy:” or any of the other bits / phrases that will help you identify what you are looking for. Similar to cross reference it kicks out the X,Y coordinates for any graphical elements and animations that exist so it’s relatively easy to find in the application once you locate it in the print file.
User is unable to figure out how / where things happen in InTouch
Resolution:
Cross reference is an awesome tool to use that will show you anywhere a tag is used (whether that’s on a script, in an animation somewhere, etc.).
It’s super handy and the latest versions can sort by different things (like Window Name) so you can easily see how many (and which) windows a certain tag appears on. Just make sure you use “Special -> Update Use Counts” first, so that the application reindexes / finds everything so that the cross-reference is accurate. You can skip this step, but the cross-reference will be only as good as when you last ran the Update Use Counts.
What if you’re searching for an indirect name build or screen call or something else that isn’t directly tag based? By using “File -> Print in WindowMaker,” you can print out every single object, script, call, graphic, etc. and do a text search for whatever you are looking for.
If you want everything, make sure you select every possible checkbox and inclusive radio button option, or you can pick just certain screens, scripts, etc. you want to search through.
From there InTouch will look to the locally installed printers for the output. I would recommend installing some kind of text-based printer driver so that you can print to a text file and do a simple search that way. Unfortunately, printing to PDF produces a graphic instead of text, rendering the words unsearchable. You can also pick the HTML option at the bottom; it just puts each window, etc. in its own HTML file. It will create the one you name as the main file and then have links to all of the ones it created. In this manner you have to search each individual HTML file as opposed to just one big text file with the text printer driver.
From there you can search for your Window name or “.name =” or “Galaxy:” or any of the other bits / phrases that will help you identify what you are looking for. Similar to cross reference it kicks out the X,Y coordinates for any graphical elements and animations that exist so it’s relatively easy to find in the application once you locate it in the print file.
TagViewer in InTouch
Full Info
Issue:
User can’t see the values of tags, their quality information, their reference, etc., due to lack of an ObjectViews in InTouch.
Resolution:
Use WWClient, an older utility that acts as a test client so that you can confirm whether or not you have communication through a DA or OIServer and into the PLC. This is a great tool for determining if a communications issue is on the PLC/IO server side or on the (InTouch, etc.) application side.
In more recent versions of InTouch, that functionality has been embedded into something called Tag Viewer. You have to configure it in WindowViewer and then launch it from a running session, but it allows you to browse the existing, running Tagname dictionary as well as add your own references.
In order to utilize Tag Viewer, you first have enable it on the Home tab of the WindowViewer configuration (under Special -> Configure -> WindowViewer) and give it an Access Level for security enablement (i.e. what does the Access Level have to equal or be greater than in order for a user to launch TagViewer).
Once TagViewer is enabled, you also need to make it available in the menu tree to select. Go to the Window Configuration tab and make sure (at least) Menu Bar, Special and then TagViewer are all selected.
Keep in mind that any dynamic hiding/locking of the menu bar, etc. will need to be overcome in order to access the commands when WindowViewer is running. As long as the Alt key is functioning, you should be able to use Alt-F to get to File in the menu bar and then tab over to Special and down from there.
User can’t see the values of tags, their quality information, their reference, etc., due to lack of an ObjectViews in InTouch.
Resolution:
Use WWClient, an older utility that acts as a test client so that you can confirm whether or not you have communication through a DA or OIServer and into the PLC. This is a great tool for determining if a communications issue is on the PLC/IO server side or on the (InTouch, etc.) application side.
In more recent versions of InTouch, that functionality has been embedded into something called Tag Viewer. You have to configure it in WindowViewer and then launch it from a running session, but it allows you to browse the existing, running Tagname dictionary as well as add your own references.
In order to utilize Tag Viewer, you first have enable it on the Home tab of the WindowViewer configuration (under Special -> Configure -> WindowViewer) and give it an Access Level for security enablement (i.e. what does the Access Level have to equal or be greater than in order for a user to launch TagViewer).
Once TagViewer is enabled, you also need to make it available in the menu tree to select. Go to the Window Configuration tab and make sure (at least) Menu Bar, Special and then TagViewer are all selected.
Keep in mind that any dynamic hiding/locking of the menu bar, etc. will need to be overcome in order to access the commands when WindowViewer is running. As long as the Alt key is functioning, you should be able to use Alt-F to get to File in the menu bar and then tab over to Special and down from there.
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