FactoryTalk View Studio Invisible Button

[psychosunshine]

I am working on someone else's HMI project and the HMI Shutdown Button is not visible in runtime. Even when logged in.


When I look at the button properties. It is called ShutdownButton1.


It has 4 tabs. General, Label, E-Signature and Common.


I don't see anything in here that would keep this button invisible. I suspect it is in the security settings somewhere. But, I can't find it.


Where can I look for some possible visibility settings?



Any help is appreciated. And, yes. The Visible button is checked. I wish it was that easy.


This is the button that closes Runtime goes back to the FactoryTalk Config. It is on a Panelview Plus 7 Performance 2711P-T7C22D9P.


On the Runtime Security Screen there are 5 different users with different levels. I have tried logging in to 3 of them. With one of them having all the letters A through P Checked.


How do those letters correlate to the buttons and screens?

 

[Operaghost]

Right-click on the button and select Animation. If it has animation on visibility you should see a checkmark next to it. Click on it to see how it (Visibility) is configured.

OG

 

[dmroeder]

In the object explorer, you can set the default visibility to False. This is not the same as animation. Click your object, scroll to the end of the object explorer, check Visibility.

 

[psychosunshine]

Operaghost that was it. There was an expression in the Visibility Tab of the Animation.

It was:
system\User == "Username"


Now, I'm trying to figure out how to add another user to this expression. Changing the username to my logged in user did do the job, though.


My syntax using OR is not working very well.

 

[ASF]

system\User == "Username" || system\User == "OtherUsername".

But if it were me, I'd change it to:

CurrentUserHasCode(a)

Where a is whichever letter you choose (A through P) according to your user security settings. Give as many users as you deem suitable access to this button.

The whole point of access control by security codes is to prevent you having to hard-code usernames in various places, which becomes a huge PITA if you ever modify the users.

 

[psychosunshine]

Well, I could not get:
system\User == "Username" || system\User == "OtherUsername".
to work anyway.


So, I used:
CurrentUserHasCode(a)


And, you're right.


Now, that I know how to use it. It makes lots of sense.


Thanks!

 

[Operaghost]

First, definitely the right move to use the user code instead of a user name. But, for expressions here is some info to know for future reference...

When you have an AND or an OR, put each side of the expression in parenthesis whenever there is an operator used. Order of operation is the key here. It does not just evaluate from left to right. Parenthesis must be evaluated first.

Example1: parenthesis not necessary
Tag A OR Tag B

Example2: parenthesis required
(Tag A > 500) OR Tag B

Example3: parenthesis required
(Tag A > 500) OR (Tag B == 100)

They include some good examples in the FTVME user manual. There is a chapter dedicated to expressions and they have tables showing the order of operation with an explanation and examples. The examples below come from that manual.

For these examples, tag1 = 5, tag2 = 7, and tag3 = 10.

(tag1 > tag2) AND (tag1 < tag3) is evaluated in this sequence:

1. tag1 > tag2 = 0
2. tag1 < tag3 = 1
3. 0 AND 1 = 0

The expression evaluates to 0 (false).

tag1 > tag2 AND tag3 is evaluated in this sequence:

1. tag2 AND tag3 = 1
2. tag1 > 1 = 1

The expression evaluates to 1 (true)

NOT tag1 AND tag2 > tag3 ** 2 is evaluated in this sequence:

1. NOT tag1 = 0
2. 0 AND tag2 = 0
3. tag3 ** 2 = 100
4. 0 > 100 = 0

The expression evaluates to 0 (false)

OG