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ACTIVEVIEW USER GUIDE PUBLICATION HSACTV-UM024A-EN-E–June 2012 Supersedes Publication HSACTV-UM023A-EN-E
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● ● ● Copyright ● ● Contact Rockwell Automation Customer Support Telephone — 1.440.646.3434 Online Support — http://www.rockwellautomation.com/support Copyright Notice © 2012 Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in USA. © 2010 OSIsoft, Inc. All rights reserved. This document and any accompanying Rockwell Software products are copyrighted by Rockwell Automation Technologies, Inc.
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Contents Introduction ............................................................ 1 FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView Product Contents ....................... 2 For End Users: Viewing FactoryTalk Historian Data with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView .................................. 5 Content of a Display Document ................................................ 6 Updates to Data in a Display ................................................... 8 Interact with the Display Document .........................
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● FactoryTalk Historian Time Abbreviations .......................... 21 FactoryTalk Historian Time Expressions ............................. 22 FactoryTalk Historian Time String Examples ....................... 23 Change Time Range ..................................................... 24 Trends with Future Time Ranges ..................................... 26 Change Time Zone ......................................................
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● ● Contents ● ● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian BatchView and Historian SQC Chart .......... 40 VBA Programming ........................................................... 40 Size the ActiveView Control and the Display Document ............. 40 Guidelines for Building Displays .......................................... 41 Export Displays from FactoryTalk Historian ProcessBook ............ 42 How the Export Utility Works .........................................
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● ActiveView Control.......................................................... 59 ActiveView Control Methods: AboutBox ................................. 60 ActiveView Control Properties ............................................ 60 BuildDateStamp Property .............................................. 60 Display Property ......................................................... 61 DisplayURL Property ...................................................
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● ● Contents ● ● ● ● Uninstalling FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView Using the Start Menu ....................................................................... 84 Uninstalling FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView Using Control Panel....................................................................... 85 Uninstalling FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView Using the Distribution Kit .......................................................... 85 Technical Support and Resources .................................
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● viii
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Chapter 1 Introduction FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView is a tool for viewing live and historical data from a variety of data sources. It presents displays of live data from the Historian Server as well as information from ODBC sources via ADO (ActiveData Objects) or VBA (Visual Basic for Applications). Using Microsoft Internet Explorer you can view these displays with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView on the Internet or within a corporate intranet.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● File that determines what PI data is viewed and the format in which it is presented. When you open a Display Document in Internet Explorer, the display automatically updates with new data from the FactoryTalk Historian server. Dynamic symbols - such as trends, bars, or values - update just as they would in FactoryTalk Historian ProcessBook. Certain VBA scripting in a display is also available in FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView.
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● 1 ● Introduction ● ● ● ● Developer's Kit (page 36).
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● ● ● ● ● 4 FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide
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Chapter 2 For End Users: Viewing FactoryTalk Historian Data with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView allows you to browse displays of live data from the Historian Server on the Internet or on a corporate intranet or from within a hosting application. When you view a Display Document in Internet Explorer, for example, the display automatically updates every few seconds with new data that reaches the Historian Server.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● 3. FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView (acview.exe) gets the appropriate data from the Historian Server and loads the data into the Display Document. This data continues to update as new data becomes available on the Historian Server. For more details, see Flow of Information (page 31). Content of a Display Document A Display Document viewed through FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView can contain both static and dynamic content.
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● 2 ● For End Users: Viewing FactoryTalk Historian Data with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● Trends are plots of point data over time. A Value is a numeric value for a particular point in the Historian Server. A value may or may not include a tag (point name) and a time stamp. Bars are used to show values graphically as a percentage of a rectangle.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● Each trend has at least one plot. The various plots and their labels may be displayed in matching colors. If the trend extends to the current time, a dotted line represents the current time. Labels may include the point name, description, value, and engineering units. Updates to Data in a Display Every few seconds, FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView updates the open displays with all the new values for tags.
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● 2 ● For End Users: Viewing FactoryTalk Historian Data with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● Interact with the Display Document The user interface is similar to that of a FactoryTalk Historian ProcessBook Display in view-only mode. You can interact with dynamic symbols in a Display Document in several ways: Expand a trend (page 9). Use trend cursors (page 10) to see values. Change the time range (page 24) forward or back.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● Trend Cursors Use trend cursors to determine values at particular points on a trend or XY plots. To initiate a cursor, point with the mouse at the value axis of the plot until the cursor pointer appears and then drag toward the opposite axis. As you drag the cursor across the plot, the value shown corresponds to the point on the plot where the cursor is. When you release the mouse button, the line and value remain on the display.
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● 2 ● For End Users: Viewing FactoryTalk Historian Data with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● set, only the Autorange and Absolute options are available for the Maximum and Minimum scale settings. 4. In Run mode, double-click the plot's value scale to open the Trend Scale dialog box. In FactoryTalk Historian ProcessBook you can also click View > Trend Scale. This menu object is not available in FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView. 5. Select Single Scale or Multiple Scales. 6.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● Database Sets the value scale using the tag attribute values in the Point Database. Zero is the minimum. Zero + Span is the maximum. See the Historian Server Reference Guide for more information on tag attributes. Absolute Allows you to type a custom value for the value scale of a tag. Type the value in the adjacent box. 8. If you have selected Absolute, type in the Maximum and Minimum values of the scale in the adjacent boxes. 9. Click OK.
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● ● 2 ● For End Users: Viewing FactoryTalk Historian Data with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● To view or hide layers in a display, right-click the display and choose Layers In the View dialog box, select Visible for any layer you want to show, and clear the check box for any layer you want to hide. The Index column shows the layer's order in the collection. The Count column shows the number of symbols on the layer.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● 3. 14 Show/Hide individual traces Select an option to hide or show the trace on the plot. If the trace has a regression line configured, the regression line is also hidden. When a trace is hidden: The trace name is dimmed in the legend and the description, value, and engineering units are hidden (if they were shown before).
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● 2 ● For End Users: Viewing FactoryTalk Historian Data with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● On a single scale trend, the minimum and maximum values shown on the scale may be adjusted. You can show hidden traces by clicking their names a second time in the legend, or by clicking the Revert button. View a Status Report The appearance of the Status button on the ActiveView toolbar indicates the current state of dynamic symbols on the display: State Description No errors.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● To view a status report for all of the symbols in a display, click the Status button on the FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView toolbar. To view a log of system messages, click Message Log. To save the status report, click Save to File. XYPlot Statistics The Statistics dialog box allows you to view and export raw data values and statistics, such as the mean and standard deviation of each tag’s data.
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● 2 ● For End Users: Viewing FactoryTalk Historian Data with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● 2. From the Options list, select Raw Data or Statistics.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● To save this data to a text file: 1. Click Save Data to File. The Save As dialog box appears. 2. Type a file name.
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● 2 ● For End Users: Viewing FactoryTalk Historian Data with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● Index, Time, Value, Status ,
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● Time and Time Ranges The following example is a trend displaying data through the current time. The right border of the trend is dotted, signifying current time, rather than solid, signifying a specific time in the past or future. The value scale may also change if the trend is formatted to have Autorange scaling.
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● 2 ● For End Users: Viewing FactoryTalk Historian Data with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian Time FactoryTalk Historian Time abbreviations and FactoryTalk Historian Time expressions allow you to specify times and time ranges for data using constants, variables, and short expressions. FactoryTalk Historian Time Abbreviations An interval is a unit of time that can be used in time entries. Intervals that support fractional values are listed below.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● Constant Result Sunday or sun 00:00:00 (midnight) on the most recent past Sunday (in reference to the Historian Server). FactoryTalk Historian Time Expressions FactoryTalk Historian allows three types of time expressions: relative time, combined time, and absolute time. These time expression types are defined in the following table.
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● 2 ● For End Users: Viewing FactoryTalk Historian Data with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● Relative and combined time expressions contain only a single operator: either a single plus sign (+) or a single minus sign (-). Additional operators can lead to unpredictable results. For example, the following are not valid time expressions: *+1d+4h T-1d+12h The name or short name for an interval used to denote FactoryTalk Historian time is not case-sensitive.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● PI Time String Meaning sat-1m 11:59:00 pm last Friday Time Interval Examples In interval expressions, a positive or unmarked interval is based on the start time, and a negative interval is based on the end time of a time expression. For example, if the start time is y, the end time is t, and the interval is +5h for a Sampled Data function, then interpolated values are generated at y, y+5h, y+10h, y+15h, and y+20h.
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● 2 ● For End Users: Viewing FactoryTalk Historian Data with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● the time range for every symbol in the display, click an unused area of the display. 2. Right-click and choose Time Range. The Change Time Range dialog box appears. 3. In the dialog box, select a range from the two lists or type a range. You can type time ranges in relative time, absolute time, or a combination of the two. For details, see Time Range Formats (page 20). 4. Click OK.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● You can also use the scroll bar in the FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView toolbar (page 27) to change the time range. Trends with Future Time Ranges Trends with time ranges that extend into the future update normally if the end time uses an asterisk (*). Use an asterisk plus a time interval (for example, *+4h) to display updating future time.
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● 2 ● For End Users: Viewing FactoryTalk Historian Data with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● The FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView Toolbar To display a toolbar, right-click the display and choose Tool Bar. Review the following for additional information: Tool Description Time Range scroll bar. To adjust the time range, select a dynamic symbol. (To select multiple symbols, hold down the Shift key. To change all the symbols in a display, click in an unused area of the display.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● Indicates the presence and nature of status information. The appearance of the Status button indicates a display's current state: No errors. A dynamic symbol in the display contains a warning. A symbol is reporting bad data or shutdown status. A symbol shows questionable data. A symbol shows annotated data. A symbol shows substituted data. Click this button to view the Status Report (page 15) dialog box.
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● ● 2 ● For End Users: Viewing FactoryTalk Historian Data with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● You can remove changes to the time range by clicking the Revert button . If a trend is too small these buttons may not appear. Double-click a trend to expand its size and display hidden buttons. If there are no trend cursors, the Trend Zoom 2x command zooms in or out of the last portion of the time period.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● Refresh Button Data is refreshed automatically. You can click the Refresh button on the Internet Explorer toolbar to download a new HTML Web page, but it does not obtain either new data or a new Display Document. Display Documents are stored in your cache until they expire.
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Chapter 3 For Developers: Administering FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView Flow of Information When you open a Web page with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView content, the flow of information occurs as follows: 1. Open Internet Explorer and browse to an Internet or intranet address (URL) for a stored HTML Web page. The Web page downloads from the Web server unless it is already cached on your PC. The PC's Internet settings determine how long an existing page is stored before it is discarded. 2.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● 4. 32 Acview.exe connects to the Historian Server through the PI-SDK and retrieves actual data for the display. You can see the data on the display within the HTML page.
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● 3 ● For Developers: Administering FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView Executable The FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView executable, acview.exe, displays data in the Display file. If you open additional Display Documents, the same instance of acview.exe continues to be used as the ActiveX (OLE) server; it is not necessary to log in to the Historian Server again. To improve performance, acview.exe caches the five most recently viewed displays on your PC.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● Expiration of Displays There are two kinds of caching of the PDI files. Both HTML and PDI displays are cached when downloaded from a website to the local machine. This is managed in part by Internet Explorer and the files are stored as temporary internet files, also called browser cache. This type of file expires exactly 24 hours from the time it is loaded. FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView caches the last 5 displays within its memory.
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● 3 ● For Developers: Administering FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● 1. Open the Registry Editor. 2. Navigate to the CurrentVersion key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\PISystem\PIActiveView\CurrentVersion 3. Right-click in the right-hand pane and select New/String Value. 4. Type PDITTL as the name of the value. 5. Right-click PDITTL, select Modify, and type the value in seconds. 6. Click OK. This image shows an expiration value of 600 seconds.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● Make sure FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView is installed on end users' machines Provide Historian Server information to end users Customize FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView settings (page 45) (optional). Install any custom components used in your displays that are not installed by FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView.
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● 3 ● For Developers: Administering FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● PIAPIConnections.exe: a tool for configuring Historian Servers. Security Internet Explorer security settings can determine whether users can view Display Documents. To view these settings, choose Tools > Internet options > Security. For HTML pages distributed through a corporate Intranet, you may want to use a different security zone with different settings than for external sites.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● operating systems. DEP prevents malicious code attacks. FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView works correctly when DEP is enabled. FactoryTalk Historian Security FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView is designed to support whatever FactoryTalk Historian Security is configured on the FactoryTalk Historian server. 1.
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● ● 3 ● For Developers: Administering FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ActiveX Controls and FactoryTalk Historian ProcessBook Add-ins Third party add-ins or ActiveX controls can provide additional functionality and visual symbols in FactoryTalk Historian ProcessBook. To use these add-ins with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView, review the information in the Rockwell Automation Technical Support article no. 254378 (http://rockwellautomation.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/254378/k w/254378).
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● FactoryTalk Historian BatchView and Historian SQC Chart You can include FactoryTalk Historian BatchView symbols (trends, Gantt charts, results tables, and runtime searches) and Historian SQC charts in a display if you have these ProcessBook symbols installed in FactoryTalk Historian ProcessBook when the display is created.
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● ● 3 ● For Developers: Administering FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● Guidelines for Building Displays Abide by the following practices when building a display: If you know the size of the FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView control ahead of time, design the display to keep scaling to a minimum. To accomplish this, restore the display window in FactoryTalk Historian ProcessBook and then size the window to match the size of the ActiveView Control's window.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● user's PC. If you use custom data sets from a FactoryTalk Historian ProcessBook add-in, that add-in must also be installed on the user's PC. Export Displays from FactoryTalk Historian ProcessBook FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView recognizes Display Documents (.pdi files) but not displays within ProcessBooks (.piw files).
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● 3 ● For Developers: Administering FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● 4. Click OK. The Export Status dialog box appears so you can follow the export progress. Each of the displays appears and the connections to the Historian Server are verified. You may need to log in during the process. If any button links in the display fail, a message appears in the dialog box. 5. Scroll down as the messages appear until you see Export Successful. 6.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● external_script.js: Used to activate the ActiveView Control in the Web page. Next, export.pdi connects all the existing links in the displays and puts the icon, disp.bmp, in the destination directory. Links between displays within the original ProcessBook continue to work; other links may not. For more information, see Create Links Between Displays or Applications (page 44). Once export.
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● 3 ● For Developers: Administering FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● hand, if the files move individually and the directory structure might change, it is better to prefer absolute paths (clear the box). When End-Users See Updates When you change or replace a Display Document on your Web site, users do not see this change until the previously downloaded Display Document expires in their cache. See Expiration of Displays (page 34) for details.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● Keyword Section(s) Description flags do not appear. Note that this keyword contains spaces. EnableXPThemes Startup When set to 1, XP themes are supported in place of the VBA color palette. ConnectUsingAPI Startup This option is useful if you have VBA code or ProcessBook add-ins that use the PI API to retrieve data from the Historian Server.
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● 3 ● For Developers: Administering FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● Keyword Section(s) Description the primary server becomes available, FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView reverts to the primary server. RequirePrimary specifies that FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView only connects to the primary server in the collective. PB2TagResolution Data Manager Specifies how tags are resolved.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● [Data Manager] TIMER = 5000 Migrate Displays to Another Historian Server When you want to use an existing tag with a different Historian Server, FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView attempts to locate the correct tags. Beginning with PI SDK 1.3.6, when you use a ProcessBook symbol with a Historian Server other than the one for which it was created, the Historian Server is added automatically if it is discoverable on the network.
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● ● 3 ● For Developers: Administering FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● 0 - [default] the Point ID is used to match a missing tag before the stored point name. 1 - uses the tag name before checking Point ID. This mimics behavior of older version of FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView that are based on the PI API. Develop Web Pages To develop a Web page with FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView content: 1. Create an HTML Web page. 2. Incorporate the ActiveView Control, pbdctrl.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● Display Sizing Browser windows may vary from one user to another. To make a display resize appropriately as the browser window size changes, set the HTML OBJECT tag's Height and Width properties using either pixels or percentages. With pixels, the display size remains constant, regardless of the browser window size. With percentages, the display size adjusts when a user resizes the browser window.
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● ● 3 ● For Developers: Administering FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● "ProtocolPrefix/Location/YourINF.inf#version=x,x,x,x"> If the additional component is a stand-alone ocx that is registered in the system, you can add code similar to the following to your HTML file before the ActiveView Control OBJECT tag. The ClassID refers to the component you are installing. The version, which is optional, also refers to the component you are installing.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● 52 4. Select the PI ActiveView Control from the list and click Finish. If the PI ActiveView Control is not visible, click Customize and select it from the Customize ActiveX Control List dialog box. 5. In FrontPage, the message Display URL is empty appears. The control itself is invisible. Right-click the message and choose ActiveX Control Properties from the menu. The ActiveX Control Properties dialog box appears.
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● 3 ● For Developers: Administering FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● 6. (Optional.) In the Server Ini page, type the path to the .ini file for the list of PI Servers required for the display, if the user does not have that server configured.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● 7. 54 Click the Display URL tab. Type the path to the display file.
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● 3 ● For Developers: Administering FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● 8. Click the Object Tag tab. Type a name for this instance of the Control. You can add multiple instances of the Control to your page, each pointing to a different display document. Use the Name property to add a script to the Web page that accesses the ActiveView Control, if needed. 9. Set the other values in the dialog box as needed to adjust appearance attributes.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ●
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12. Place the .htm file on your Web site.
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● 3 ● For Developers: Administering FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● Embed a Display in a Spreadsheet To create and embed a Display Document in Microsoft Excel: 1. Create a Display Document (page 39). 2. Open a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, right-click the Toolbars, and choose Control Toolbox. 3. In the Control toolbox, choose 4. Position the ActiveView Control on the spreadsheet and adjust the size as appropriate. 5.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● 7. In VBA terminology, you are setting the ServerIniURL and DisplayURL properties of the Control. The DisplayURL is required. 8. Click OK. 9. In the spreadsheet, click the Design Mode button to switch from VBA Design Mode to Run Mode. This allows the ActiveView Control to load acview.exe and show the Display Document file.
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● 3 ● For Developers: Administering FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView ● ● ● ● Automation ActiveView Control The ActiveView Control, pbdctrl.ocx, is an ActiveX control. An ActiveX control has a filename ending in .ocx.. It enables Display Documents to be viewed inside ActiveX containers, including Web browsers. The FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView Control relies on an ActiveX server for much of its functionality. The FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView executable, acview.exe, provides this support.
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● ● ● FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView User Guide ● ● ActiveView Control Methods: AboutBox This method displays version information about the control. Example This example displays FactoryTalk Historian ActiveView Control AboutBox from a button on the Web page. Example 2 sets DisplayURL with a string from the text area.
