Passing Parameter File Values in a Parameter File

Hey Everyone,

I am using FactoryTalk View ME and I am trying to pass a value to be used as a parameter file into a screen via a parameter file and not having much luck. Is this possible? I've attached an image to help explain what I want to do.

When screen "Machine 1" is launched from "Main" it will be passed a parameter file. When "Settings" is launched from "Machine 1" I want to pass it a parameter file that is defined in the file that was passed from "Main" to "Machine 1."

Does anyone know of a way to do that?

Thanks,

-Benaiah

I think you should be able to use the same parameter file. Just include everything in the one file. The references in "Settings" would be higher reference numbers.

Keith

I think I see what you want, but I'm not sure that it's possible. I was reading up on parameter files recently for a different purpose, but as I recall they can only be used to modify or replace tag names. Since a parameter file name isn't a tag I don't think it will work. Have you tried it?

You could use a single parameter file, as Keith suggests, though I suspect you're trying to do nested popups. If you only want two layers deep, I'd probably just create a normal popup for each machine, and use paramenter files only on the last level, assuming that level has the most repetition.

you can do it in se but unfortunately not in me from what i see

kamenges said:

I think you should be able to use the same parameter file. Just include everything in the one file. The references in "Settings" would be higher reference numbers.

Click to expand...

I just tried doing this and I couldn't get it to work. The parameters defined when I went to "Machine 1" didn't seem to carry through to "Settings"

JRoss said:

Have you tried it?

Click to expand...

Yes, I tried doing it the way you would hope would work (Setting a parameter file name as a parameter in the file being passed in, and then using that parameter in the parameter file field of the next goto button, but as you suspected that didn't work.

JRoss said:

I suspect you're trying to do nested popups.

Click to expand...

Yup, thats essentially what I'm trying to do, though rather than popups they are full screens.

JRoss said:

If you only want two layers deep, I'd probably just create a normal popup for each machine, and use paramenter files only on the last level, assuming that level has the most repetition.

Click to expand...

Looks like that is the approach I'm going to have to go with, I was hoping to avoid that, but it looks like the "optimal" solution doesn't really exist.

Thanks for all the suggestions everyone!

-Benaiah

If you create a Machine 1 folder and Machine 2 folder then you can use the parameter file to choose the folder from which to pull your tags. Check out chapter 25 in the Factory Talk View ME User Manual.

http://literature.rockwellautomation.com/idc/groups/literature/documents/um/viewme-um004_-en-e.pdf

hope this helps

I don't do much with me but you could always use a global object. Say if you have 10 machines create 10 buttons with hard links to "settings" "Param file"in you global object set their visibility to false. Then when you open the machine screen for example machine 1 use a parameter to show only the button for machine 1 using the visibility property.


I am on the road now but can mAke you a quick and dirty sample to test

labeledas said:

I don't do much with me but you could always use a global object. Say if you have 10 machines create 10 buttons with hard links to "settings" "Param file"in you global object set their visibility to false. Then when you open the machine screen for example machine 1 use a parameter to show only the button for machine 1 using the visibility property.


I am on the road now but can mAke you a quick and dirty sample to test

Click to expand...

Thanks labeledas, I got it working thanks for the idea!

Just so future people know how to make this work:
I tried just passing passing "#1=1" or #1=2" into the parameter file for machine 1 or machine 2, and using "{#1}=1 -> Visible" etc in the global object, but that didn't work. So what I ended up doing was creating a tag in each PLC called "MachineNumber" and setting that to something different in each PLC. Then when I passed in "#1=[PLC]MachineNumber" and then using the "{#1}=1" as the visibility condition it worked great.

Thanks again for all the help!