- Features -

Current PLC Drivers also see Current Logger Protocols

Dynamic object properties
Dynamics are a set of very powerful tools allowing the user to manual or automatically manipulate any drawn or inserted object. Dynamics may be added to any object to visually change its position, size, colour, fill, visibility or touch parameters. This allows a simple rectangle to become a bargraph, text to change colour or a button to run language etc. Dynamics are controlled from the loggers tag values or from the languages internal variables. They can be either numeric values or strings. The only exception is the Track Bar control. In this case, the track bar writes values to the logger or language internal variables.

Built in object Language
Language is a very powerful tool enabling the user to perform almost any practical requirement in his control system. Language scripts may be assigned to any drawing or object in the application enabling the user to fully customise his system. Data Managers Language is a subset of the well-known BASIC programming language and each language script is stored in a separate .dmb file resident in the language directory. This method enables a language script to be executed from many different places without having to duplicate code. Language variables created within language scripts may be shared between many scripts or used to manipulate on screen objects as desired. These variables may also be transferred into tags and passed on to the plant or any remote networked station using DDE.

Data Logger
The logger is the interface mechanism between Data Manager and its data sources. A data source may be either a piece of plant equipment connected to the computer via a serial communications port, or a piece of data resident in another application or indeed another machine on a network. Since there are many possible types of plant equipment available from a range of manufacturers, Data Manager provides optional drivers to cope with the different serial protocols used. The logger transfers data between the real world and Data Manager by means of Tags. A tag may hold a single piece of data and this may be either a number or a string. Numbers may be scaled as required (engineered) before being used by Data Manager. Tag data is acquired by the logger at regular intervals called the sample time. If required the logger will record tag data onto the computer hard disk for later display on a chart. The logger also provides a mechanism for data to be sent back to the plant equipment. This allows full interaction between the operator and the connected plant.

Charts and Historical Data
Charts are used as a convenient means of displaying plant data in graphical form. They behave in a similar manner to a mechanical recorder and paper. The chart may be used to display historical recorded data (historical chart) or real time plant data (current chart). Historical charts use data, which is recorded to the computer hard disk at various intervals by the logger. This data is discrete time snapshots of the actual plant information. When an historical chart is displayed, the chart recovers the recorded data for all the traces covering the chart time period. The user is then free to use the chart as a 'window', moving this window around over the recovered historical data as required. A powerful feature of Data Manager charts is its the ability to zoom. Zooming allows detailed inspection of the data and this unlimited zooming capability is very useful for analysing critical information.

Multiple Projects
It is often necessary to work on more than one project at a time which means using a different Tag list, Password list, Display drawings, Logger setup and other general settings. Therefore, Data Manager allows the system designer to Create and Change projects as and when required. This means the core of the system remains the same but each project is set up with its own file structure. This also enables the easy copying of the configuration data for each separate project to be transferred to a target system. Therefore, by being able to change to and work on different projects at any time the designer has total freedom.

Recipe load, save and export
Recipes are mainly used as a means to send profile data to instruments via the comms. Although recipes in general can be used for many other tasks such as, screen configuration, permanent data storage etc. There are 3 possible recipe types per drawing. The recipes themselves are unique but are classed as type 1, 2 or 3. What this means is that you can control upto 3 different recipes on the same drawing. Recipes belong to the drawing they were created on, and as such are unique to that drawing. This allows different drawings to control different groups of recipes. If required a level can also be applied to each recipe items. The level controls the order in which the data is sent to the instrument. Any tag given a level of 1 will have the highest priority and will be sent first, followed by level 2, 3, 4, 5 etc, upto level 99. If a level of 0 (zero) is entered the data for this item will not be sent. There is also a send-to feature available that allows a recipe to be sent to more than one instrument at a time.

Alarm Detection and Annunciation
The alarming system is broken-down into two separate parts, namely setup and detection. In setup you select the tags that you want the alarm system to work on. Then for each selected tag you add the required alarm trip actions. Therefore, any given tag can have multiple trips attached. Once all the alarms have been setup and saved its time to switch to Run mode. Once in run mode the alarm detection system is activated and will report any alarm conditions immediately. Normally, if the alarm window is not visible when an alarm is activated, it will automatically popup on screen.

Multi-level Undo/Redo in drawing editor
Undo and Redo are invaluble during the design stage of any project. They allow the designer to experiment with ideas without the worry of loseing any of his current work. They are also invaluble for correcting those accidents that happen from time to time. The undo mechanism works as a first in last out stack system in that as new actions take place the oldest actions get pushed out the other end of the stack. The old undo actions that get pushed out are then lost and cannot be retrieved. Therefore, only the last X actions can be undone, where X is in range is from 0 to 100.

Multi-layer drawing capability
This feature allows the designer to draw objects to a number of different drawing layers. This means that by switching layers at design or run time different objects can be either shown or hidden as required. At run time layers can be activated by a login level a button press or through a running language file.

Touch Screen Interface (Keyboard-less system)
When Data Manager is set to Touch Screen control clicking with the mouse or touching an item on the screen will cause the numeric or alphanumeric keyboard to automatically popup. The correct keyboard is selected according to the data type required.

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