Alwasy On Top Display FTV SE

Hi Guys,

I am calling a display to open when a plc tag is true via vba. This is working fine but what I'd like to do is to keep the display on top until the operator acknowledges it. Again closing the display is easy to do. What I'm struggling with is keeping the display on top even if the operator chooses to view another display from the main menu as all my main displays are the replace type. I do need the operator to be able to cycle through other displays while this display is open as it instructs the operator of the machine to carry out certain procedures which take time to do.

I was thinking about docking the display to the left hand side of the screen when it opens as this would solve my problem but I'm not sure of the VBA command to do this.

I'm using the commands when the condition is true :' application.showdisplay "name" ' and 'application.Loaddisplay "name" ' to call the display from my hidden vba screen.

Once again any help is appreciated.

regards

Jonny

Here's an idea...

In your VBA screen create a tag that points to a timer or system timer. Have it's VBA run OnChange()

ExecuteCommand "PullForward popupwindowname"

Then, if the screen is displayed somewhere (make sure its Display Settings are "On Top" then every time that timer changes, it will force it to be pulled to the front. You could have that run every 5 seconds or so to minimize impact.

Instead of using VBA to call the screen, use it to run a macro. In the macro you can tell it to pop up the screen and dock it to the left hand side as you suggest. From memory if you double click in the macro window it brings up a command builder which will help you get the syntax right.

Using this method you will only need to call it once, you won't have to keep executing it to keep the window on top

Thanks guys,

Both replies are good. I'll try the macro one first although I think there might be an issue using the startup command of a display to reopen the same display and dock it due to it already being activated. I'll try it first and let you know how I get on.

I don't think that'll be an issue. I have an application where I sometimes have an alarm banner docked to the bottom of the screen, sometimes not, depending on which page you're on. To achieve this, all my navigation buttons have two commands: open desired screen, and then either open or close the alarm banner. If I move from one screen that has the alarm banner to another that also has it, I'm running a command to open and dock a display that's already open and docked, as you would be doing here. No issues. The only time anything at all happens is if I switch between two displays that both DO NOT have the alarm banner, in which case it tries to close a display that's not open. And even then all that happens is I get a message in the diagnostics log saying "unable to close alarm banner". Not a big issue at all.

I don't tend to like that kind of code and have actively removed it from more than one program at operations request. It can tend to be an issue when you are trouble shooting and want to see another screen or in one case it was set to display a screen showing the issue but the only way to correct the issue was ANOTHER screen! Every time you went to the screen to change the setpoint to fix the issue is tossed you back to the error screen. Can be frustrating. Please don't take that wrong. I'm not sayign it is a bad idea for your application or you shouldn't use it, just pointing out issues I have had with similar programming as something to look out for.

YMMV

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