The ID Tab

Every tag’s configuration panel will have an ID tab that includes the same four elements.  All tags of all types must be identified and all will share the same identifying characteristics: name, area and description.  The fourth element, Help Search Key, is rarely used in practice but is provided for those who have created their own compiled help files and wish to link specific tags to topics within that file.

Two tag types, Report and the Data Flow RTU driver will include an extra field in their ID tab. See the description for those tags for more information.

Name

Tag names are discussed at length in the topic Tag Configuration Rules and Recommendations.  Briefly, every tag must have a unique name, created according to the naming rules.

Area

The area field is used to group similar tags together.  By defining an area, you make it possible to:

•    Filter for particular tag groups when searching in the tag browser

•    Link dial-out alarm rosters to alarm tags having a particular area

•    Limit the number of tags loaded upon startup.

•    Filter the alarm display to show only certain areas.

•    Filter tag selection by area when building reports

To use the area field effectively, you might consider setting the same Area for each I/O driver and its related I/O tags in order to group all the tags representing the equipment processes installed at each I/O device. You might also consider naming the Area property for the physical location of the tag (i.e. a station or name of a landmark near the location of the I/O device). For serial port or roster tags, you might configure the Area property according to the purpose of each tag, such as System or Communications.

 

The area name may be up to 256 characters in length.  You may define as many areas as you wish and you may leave the area blank for some tags (note that for modem tags that are to be used with the alarm dialer system, it is actually required that the area field be left blank).

To define a new area, type the name in the field. It will immediately be added.  To use an existing area, use the drop-down list feature.  Re-typing an existing area name is not recommended since a typo or misspelling will result in a second area being created. 

There is no tool to remove an area name from VTS since such a tool is unnecessary. An area definition will exist as long as one tag uses it and will stop existing when no tag uses it.

Description

Tag names tend to be brief.  The description field allows you to give each tag a human-friendly note describing its purpose.  While not mandatory, the description is highly recommended.

Tag descriptions are displayed in the tag browser, in the list of tags to be selected for a report and also on-screen when the operator holds the pointer over the tag’s drawing method.

The description field will store up to 65,500 characters, but this will exceed the practical limits of what can be displayed on-screen.

Help Search Key

Used only by those who have developed their own Compiled Help Module (CHM) documentation (such as this guide).  To see this system in action, open the ID tab of any tag’s configuration panel and press the F1 key.  This guide will immediately open to display information about that screen because a link exists between the topic in this guide and that screen.

When a user-defined help search key is defined for a tag, a Help button will appear between the tag properties folder's OK and Cancel buttons the next time the tag properties folder is opened. Further, when any of the tag's drawing methods is right-clicked, selecting the Help shortcut menu option will open the assigned help topic.

In addition to creating the help file, defining a numeric topic id and setting that id as the Help Search Key, you must also tell your application how to find your .CHM file. See the topic, Integrating Custom Help Files into VTS for a description of how to do this.