FactoryTalk View SE Menu Display

I'm currently working on an FTView SE v5.1 distributed system that has about 400 displays and is designed for upwards of 20 clients.

We're upgrading from an SE v4.0 system and have decided to switch monitor aspect ratios in the process. We're going from a 1280x1024 display to a 1680x1050 display. With this extra real estate, we've decided that we would like to add an always present menu/status/info bar on the left hand side of the screen (I guess we could do right if that helps eliminate my issue). I've attached an image of the menu bar. Basically there's 12 main menu categories and 12 submenu options for each main menu button. When an operator presses one of the main menu buttons, it shows the submenu. The submenu buttons will then open graphic displays once pressed. The submenu should stay open after pressed. I'd like to make this menu without having to change anything in the ~400 existing displays.

I've tried to implement this in a number of ways, but can't seem to get it to work properly. The most convenient thing for me would to be able to have 1 large display which is docked to the left side. However, the menus get a little difficult to create in this method (I'm using a Multistate indicator for the labels and a really long chained if statement for the button actions, all based on a memory tag). This all worked fine, until I thought about needing to have more than 1 client connected. I then started looking for a way to have "local" memory tags, but of course FTView doesn't have that feature. I feel like there's probably a way to do this in VBA, but I have no experience with OOP, and the whole interaction between that and animation is a little confusing.

Any ideas on how to make a menu like this would be greatly appreciated! I've been working on this for about 30 hrs now and haven't really come up with anything that works.

If you need any clarification/have any questions, please feel free to ask! Thanks!

If you already have 400 displays, you must have an unlimited display license. That makes the job do-able, even if it will be cumbersome. Don't use multi-state indicators, just create additional windows (as overlays or popups) for each submenu, and position them by hand.

The main menu should be set as a "Replace" window, covering the area that the pop-ups will appear in. Whenever a selection is made on a pop-up, have it open the target displa AND the main menu display. This will prevent there from being too many pop-ups stacked up on top of each other if people play around with the main menu.

A cancel button on each popup menu should do the same thing (re-display the main menu). Have the main menu set to allow only one copy at a time.

It's not pretty, but the VBA is even less pretty.

If I understand the problem correctly, it shouldn't even be cumbersome to do this with additional display windows. It will take what? 14 new windows? One Footer, one Main Menu, and 12 sub-menus? By breaking out the footer, these windows won't have to overlay, and the Main Menu will not have to be refreshed by every sub-menu. The sub-menus will just replace each other.

As you have so many screens and what to create a menu for them, it might be good idea to consider using Global Objects.

A Global Object is an object that is created once and can then be reference multiple times on multiple displays within an HMI Server. When you make changes to the original (base) object, the copies (reference objects) are changed as well.
Consider an graphical object (e.g., a motor or a faceplate) that appears on several different graphics within your HMI application. If the object is a Global Object and you need to change its appearance, you only have to change it in 1 location (Global Displays). If it is not a Global Object, you would have to edit the object on each individual graphic display.

Thanks for the suggestions guys. I pretty much figured it out after I realized/ thought of putting the menu on the right side of the screen while I was typing my initial post.

By doing this, I can just specify for the menu to go at position (1280,0) and it won't interfere with the rest of the displays (which it would have on the left). I'm creating 12 menu displays, one for each of the sub menus. Within each one I've placed a global object which is the main menu. By doing this, the main menu is a lot more manageable, but I am also still able to break the Global obj link and change the color for the active button.

This appears to be working for now, but so did all my other ideas at one point...