FTView Studio 8 - disable/enable selected pen in running application

[Memorex]

Hello everyone,

I'm currently using FactoryTalk View Studio 8 (CPR 9 SR 7) and I found some problem in using trends.

In my project I have trend that displays few tags from PLC so normally connections to this tags in Trend Object Properties are e.g.
Pen1 <- {::[PLC]Program:TAG_TO_DISPLAY1}
Pen2 <- {::[PLC]Program:TAG_TO_DISPLAY2}
etc...

What I want to achive is to have an ability of turning off current Pen in running project. Let's say I would have bool variable TAG1_ON_OFF, Tag2_ON_OFF, etc.. which tell that current tag is displayed(TRUE) or not(FALSE)

First I tried to make an expression in trend connections:
If {TAG1_ON_OFF} Then {::[PLC]Program:TAG_TO_DISPLAY1} ELSE none

but of course 'none' is not recognizable and an alarm is generated. The sentence must be IF ... THEN ... ELSE ... so I need to have something in ELSE but I don't want to have 'ELSE 0' becouse it will be displayed anyway on value 0.

So do you know if there is any way of disabling current pen in running application?

 

[Operaghost]

Take a look in the Trend Library and you will see some pre-made buttons to do exactly what you are attempting. The buttons use VBA code so you will need to expose the trend to VBA control. You also have to know the name of the trend object (trend1, trend2, etc...) and change the VBA code to match your trend object name. It's not hard to do and you really don't need to even know VBA to do it. Though if you do, then you can do even more through the code.

OG

 

[Memorex]

Do you mean Graphic/Libraries/trends ?
There is some example of using trend but I didn't find function to disable current pen.
There are only buttons for pause, home, end, next pen, etc.

 

[Operaghost]

Sorry, in your post you stated FT Studio but you neglected to mention that you were using Machine Edition (ME). I mistakenly assumed you were using Supervisory Edition (SE) were those buttons and VBA control were available.

Unfortunately ME does not offer that level of access. I'm not sure of a way to hide the pen, but using an expression you could plot it as a "0" (instead of "none") or some other value.

OG