Demo application of the PROMOTIC system

The application serves for presenting the capabilities of the PROMOTIC system. It is designed the size of the application not to exceed 30 variables and 10 graphic panels (see PmRtFree - Free runtime licence). Multipte panels are being switched automatically after starting the application. These panels represent various industrial technologies. Some panels have been taken from real systems with the permission of system owners. All data values, alarms and events are emulated.

The basic control is done by means of buttons in the PmaPanel object configured as ToolBar that is located as a subobject of the PmaWorkspace object. Swithing the panels in "Auto" mode is done by using the script in the onRefresh event of the "SlideShow" button.

Alarm and Event emulation in the PmaAlarmGroup object is done after pressing the corresponding selection by means of calling the designer's method Methods defined on the "Methods" tab of the PmaFolder object named "/Manager".

Workspace

The application workspace is represented by the PmaWorkspace object. It has two subobjects of the PmaPanel type. One represents the About window and the second is the Toolbar. On the "PmaWorkspace > Frames" tab the application workspace is separated into:

- The "toolbar" frame positioned on the upper side. It has a static size and is connected to the subobject named "Toolbar".

- The "main" frame is taking the rest of the area dedicated for the application panels.

Panel representing the toolbar

The Toolbar object (of the PmaPanel type) represents the application toolbar and is located as subobject of the PmaWorkspace object. In each button (of the PmgButton type) the application panels switching is activated.

Data

The data for application panels is stored in the /EmulData/Data object. The object values are emulated or computed from emulated values by means of the PmaTimer object. Some items are connected by data extension (Data extensions) via ExtTrend to PmaTrendGroup objects and via ExtAlarmAnalog to the PmaAlarmGroup object.

Panels

The /Applications folder contains multiple subfolders with PmaPanel objects. If the panels use access to the items of the PmaData object, then the connection is made to the object located in the /EmulData/Data object. The PmaTrendGroup objects located in these folders are connected by means of ExtTrend to the PmaData object.

The /Others folder contains further folders where additional PmaPanel and PmaReport are stored. In the panels, there are, for example, object (PmgTrendViewer and PmgWTable) or the motion animation is being solved there together with the PmgCanvas object usage. The PmaReport objects represent the example of print protocols and alarm reports.

Switching languages in the runtime mode

The language list used in the application is defined on the "PmaRoot > Application" tab. Language dependent texts are read according to selected language from the text_appdemo.xml application file. The xml file syntax for accessing each text is described in Macro expression $.text. The language selection after starting the application is solved in the PmaRoot.onAppStartBegin event. The application language setting is available by means of the RtLang property. See How to create an application using different national languages.

PmaWeb

The PmaWeb object (Web) allows the application to be offered as Web server (Overview of the Web technology in the PROMOTIC system). In this object additional objects are inserted allowing more application technologies PmaWebDir, PmaWebInfo (language independent objects), PmaWebFolder and PmaWebLang to be accessed via Web. It contains additional objects that are offered on the Web in selected language.

This layout allows logical sorting of the objects acessed via Web on the "Web server" tab of the PmaData, PmaTrendGroup, PmaPanel and PmaAlarmGroup objects.

In the PmaWeb object the default path is changed to folder webdir containing the index.htm file. It means that the Web client after entering the http://computername URL addres in the Web browser will display the first page index.htm located in the webdir subfolder in the application folder.

Promotic