FactoryTalk View ME 5.0 - Closing a graphics display

[stuofsci02]

Hello All,

I am currently having a very simple problem that is very frustrating.

I am creating a configuration inteface for a process and the interface has a main page that displays the current status and configuration of the process. I would like the operator to be able to setup each step of the process using a "wizard" like interface, where they press the configuration button and a small popup appears. The first popup would be the configuration for step 1 of the process. They could then hit the next button and a popup for step 2 appears and so on until all 15 steps have been setup. There is too much configuration information to do all on one page.

The problem I am having is when I press the next button to goto step 2 from step 1, there is no way of closing the step 1 popup. Step 2 popup simply covers the step 1 popup. By the time the operator has gone through the 15 step configuration, he/she will have to close 15 individual windows.

This seems crazy, but I cannot find another way. Can anyone give me a pointer?

Thanks,

Stuart

 

[rdrast]

Try this:
In your "Next" button, for the "Release" action
Display (next_screen)
Abort (previous_screen)

 

[stuofsci02]

That seems to be the problem.. There is no "release" action like there is in RSview32. One can only select the screen they with to goto.

 

[creativepaper]

have you tried putting all the dialog boxes as onTop. This means that when you click on next, you would Goto screen 2 which would be ontop of screen 1, etc. When you have finished you would have 15 dialog boxes ontop of each other, which in turn would be ontop of your initial screen. WHen you click on finish you would then Goto to intial screen, therefore you wouldn't see the wizard boxes.

 

[rdrast]

have you tried putting all the dialog boxes as onTop. This means that when you click on next, you would Goto screen 2 which would be ontop of screen 1, etc. When you have finished you would have 15 dialog boxes ontop of each other, which in turn would be ontop of your initial screen. WHen you click on finish you would then Goto to intial screen, therefore you wouldn't see the wizard boxes.

That might work, but would most likely seriously bog down performance on ME.

stuofsci02 - After playing some, it seems your only real option is to make all of the wizard screens "Replace", there doesn't seem to be any good way of controlling "On Top" display navigation in ME that I can see. The only other viable method I can think of, which would still have a performance hit, and would be a nightmare to edit, would be:

Make some dummy screens, with the items you want shown. On each screen, group all objects, and use the "Visibility" animation option based on a number.

Then pile them all on top of each other, and add your "Next / Prior" buttons, which would increase/decrease a register in the PLC, affecting the visibility of individual wizard 'pages'.

Yuck.

 

[stuofsci02]

have you tried putting all the dialog boxes as onTop. This means that when you click on next, you would Goto screen 2 which would be ontop of screen 1, etc. When you have finished you would have 15 dialog boxes ontop of each other, which in turn would be ontop of your initial screen. WHen you click on finish you would then Goto to intial screen, therefore you wouldn't see the wizard boxes.

Yeah.. This was my first attempt to have a work around. It works great if I do not want to go back to my initial screen. If I do goto the initial screen it just removes focus from the popups and puts focus to the initial screen, but leaves the popups there.

 

[stuofsci02]

That might work, but would most likely seriously bog down performance on ME.

stuofsci02 - After playing some, it seems your only real option is to make all of the wizard screens "Replace", there doesn't seem to be any good way of controlling "On Top" display navigation in ME that I can see. The only other viable method I can think of, which would still have a performance hit, and would be a nightmare to edit, would be:

Make some dummy screens, with the items you want shown. On each screen, group all objects, and use the "Visibility" animation option based on a number.

Then pile them all on top of each other, and add your "Next / Prior" buttons, which would increase/decrease a register in the PLC, affecting the visibility of individual wizard 'pages'.

Yuck.

Haha.. I had the same thought.. In fact I was thinking about doing it. The edit might not be too bad, if I first group each screen, and then add a visibilty attribute.

Since I have already made the individual popups, I can use them as jump too step configuration screens with only a close button. Then I could make one wizard screen with all the setting. I would be horrible to look at, but just might work.

Thanks

 

[creativepaper]

I'm actually using the ontop display on a replacement DCS system. Each PID pop-up is a ontop window ontop of the main display. Underneath is a graph section which uses ontop to get the correct graph. I am running all this on a base model Dell (not dual core, 1GB mem). The most windows I have had open are about 40 at once and no slow-down on tag updates or when I change windows. Also the system is stable.

 

[stuofsci02]

I figured out a work around... I undocked the original screen to make it a popup.. I unselected a title bar and made the screen full size. To the operator it will not appear as a popup. All the wizard popups will go overtop of this one. So I will have 14 screens open at one time. When the operator hits the close wizard button, it just brings the intial screen (popup) to the frot which covers the wizard. When I hit close on the initial popup it brings the operator back to the menu and closes all the popups...