Red Lion DSP Virtual HMI click position

Hi guys,

I developed an application on a Red Lion DataStation Plus DSPSX device, which has a small "Virtual HMI" you can access via Web browser. This is super-useful for my application where I have to write a custom serial protocol and want diagnostic things to appear onscreen.

But I encountered something weird: when I put buttons onscreen, the cursor doesn't seem to go where I point it.

When I click on a button that is part-way down the screen, the button at the top of the screen (at the same X-position) receives the click.

... but not always. Maybe 1 time out of 5, the desired object will be activated.

I'm using Internet Explorer 11, on Windows 7 32-bit, inside a Virtual Machine. No other application seems to have any kind of pointer problems.

I also use the virtual "hard"/navigation pushbuttons and those work as expected.

I have never seen this on a G3 series physical HMI touchpad.

Has anyone else seen this on a DataStation Plus "Virtual HMI" ?

Try Chrome. I think I saw this with early versions of the Crimson Web Server when using IE. I have not seen anything too weird with Chrome, except when there is a big lag due to remote access VPN + wireless ISP, there is occasionally a half painted screen and slow response.

High five !

I was trying to keep the VM clean of extra stuff... but sure enough, Chrome works perfectly.

It was interesting learning about the Crimson "C-like" language in a little more detail today, and I was able to put together my little poll/response protocol driver in about 10 hours of labor.

I was so proud of myself until I heard from our field guy: "um, yeah, the custom RS485 interface boards all have burnt components, so we need to replace everything."

I'm still going to put in the DataStation Plus units in place of the MVI46-GSC modules. The old method had no error checking and required you to go online with the SLC-500 and cruise around the ladder logic and data tables even to count timeouts. Putting that data on a couple of browser-accessible screens will make them easier to check on when I get the inevitable "there's something wrong with the communications" call.

Awesome! Feels good to be able to help someone who has given so much to this community.