7.7 Chart templates

The PVSR system allows the user to define private charts, or public ones in case of administrators, which can display more measurements at the same time. The definition of such charts is a time consuming process as you have to provide each of the measurements, their names displayed on the chart, the properties of the chart, the display mode of measurements, and etc. one-by-one. To facilitate this process it is possible to generate chart templates, thus creating a new chart can be done in one or two simple steps or even automatically. This chapter does not describe every single attributes of the charts in detail, thus it is useful to read through the chapter on editing charts. If a chart is manually created using a template, then the template does not influence the chart anymore, the chart can be modified arbitrary and the changes made in the template will not reconfigure anew the already existing chart. However if the chart is created automatically using the template and later a new measurement is created which would have been placed on the chart then PVSR will place the measurement on the chart.

The creation, modification and deletion of templates can be done under the “Templates->Charts templates” sub menu.

You can begin the chart template configuration in two ways:

·       [add new]: start a new chart template from scratch

·       [copy]: use an existing chart template by copying its content into a new template (click on the [copy] link in its row)

Three fields have to be specified during creation or modification:

• Name: Must be unique among the equipment templates
• Type: The type of the data collector of the equipment to be created
• Auto create: If this is turned on and someone opens an equipment for which the template can be applied then the application automatically creates the chart in the name of the admin user
• Template: The template expression based on which the creation is performed
• Sites: Defines which sites the template is assigned to. It is possible to assign one template to more sites. If no site is selected, then the template can be used at all sites.

The template is a text file which in structure follows the structure of INI files found on Windows systems: the expression contains more sections, and the section names are enclosed with [ and ] characters. Both section and parameter names must be written in lower case letters. Empty lines and lines starting with the # character are ignored by the system

In case one section occurs more than once in an expression (this can happen only for the member_group) then the number following the name decides in which order the section is processed during the creation of the device. Example: if there are two member_group sections then one must be named [member_group1] the other [member_group2], thus if a measurement to be inserted into a chart falls into the group defined by member_group1 then it will not be selected when the member_group2 group is processed. The order of the measurements on a chart can also be defined inside the member_group; the use of more such sections is only recommended if for some reason we want to specify another chart element attribute (e.g. line or bar).

The fields found on the template are mostly identical to the ones found on the chart template configuration page.

A complete template sample can be found at the end of this chapter together with screen dumps following its execution and the created chart.

7.7.1      chart 258

7.7.2      member_group. 261

7.7.3      Example 264