tpoirier

Hi all, I'm trying to improve the flow of an HMI (Panel View 1000) such that when a user taps a button and they do not have permission to that operation (change a value, navigate to a screen) the HMI would automatically take them to the login screen. My thought would be to create a tag in the background to establish who has access / permission that I can run a check against. I can setup another tag with a message that would change to tell the operator why the login screen appeared, something along the lines of "You must be logged in at a Supervisor level to complete this action". The part I can't seem to figure out is the actual button logic. Is there a way to create a macro that would handle something like navigation. The documentation I found show the macros being limited to simple options. What I was hoping for was some sort of button that ran a Macro along the following: User selects button to navigate to Maintenance Screen If userPermission = 1 Then goTo MaintenanceScreen1 Else goTo LoginScreen This method would require I code each button that has a restricted permission but I think the UI / operator interaction will be better, clearer for someone not familiar with the process. I'm open to other suggestions to accomplish this as well! Thanks in advance!

Ok - So after some research it seems that you can supply a GoTo navigation button with a string value of a display. So what I'm thinking is to create a macro that runs on the login, that will set the navigation string to the appropriate screen or to the login screen based on the user type. I'll run the macro as a global connection macro and have it watch the isLogged in bit tag I created already. So user logs in, macro runs to assign the display values. User then can see all button options but when they hit a page without permissions it will force them to the login page. On logout the macro runs again resetting the permissions. I can also set my messages in the macro to tell the user why they ended up on the login screen instead of the desired screen.

There are a number of bluetooth options available in various development boards (such as the Arduino), I remember seeing one on Kickstarter recently that allowed basic IO to be controlled via Bluetooth. Then you can write a custom App for your android device and control the board remotely within reason. Alternatively, as AndrewG mentioned the regular Arduino board does come with a wifi / Ethernet shield that could be used in combination with a website/service to control inputs via the web. A simple website accessed via a browser on the smartphone could chat with the board then the PLC.

Hi all, So this is more of a theory / how would you attack this problem, question: I'm creating my first HMI and while playing around in FactoryTalk View Studio I noticed I can add objects to a screen. I can add a browser and with some work I can get it to display an HMTL file directly in the screen. So the browser in this case is opening a file stored locally, not something served up from the internet. Which opens up the question, could I write most of my HMI in HTML and Javascript? As a previous developer having the ability to control more of the UI would be amazing and perhaps easier to use/maintain. The only pitfall that I haven't been able to figure out is how to get real time values from the PLC. I'd welcome anyone's input on the idea in general or if someone knows a good method for getting/setting values from the PLC. Thanks!