This version (10 Feb 2021 15:30) was approved by John McKane.
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Tool Views
The Tool Views are a collection of views that add additional functionality to the main views outlined above. These views can be opened from the view menu item on the application toolbar, and open outside of the main view tabs. Tool Views that are opened when the application is closed will reopen when the application starts up again.
Macro Tool View
The Macro Tool View, see below, allows commands to be recorded and played back. Macros can be created to configure a component, to share a series of steps with other users or to perform common tasks multiple times to reduce human error. The Macro Tool view is found in the Tools drop down, On the Side Bar of the Main Window.
The Macro Tool toolbar can be used to open, record, save, close and delete Marcos. When in recording mode the commands list will automatically populate when a recordable transaction is selected. By default the list command is populated with the top level command, for example apply settings, this can be extended to show sub-commands by selecting the record sub-commands option prior to activating the record. When sub-commands are recorded the Commands list is expanded to contain the sub-commands that occur when the transaction is triggered, for example all registers updated as part of the apply settings transaction are listed. Sub-commands are denoted by a “>” symbol for each level of the tree.
If there is a macro currently opened and the record button is selected a popup will open giving the options to either record a new macro or to append the recording onto the currently open one. If record a new macro is selected a new macro will be created and added to the macros list. This macro will automatically become the current macro and the transactions will be recorded as a component of this new macro. This will have no effect on any other open macros which will still be available in the macros list. If the append option is selected the next transaction recorded will be added to the command list of the current opened macro. There is no checking to ensure that the new command can be completed following on from the previous step, for example there is no check to ensure that the view open is the same between the two commands.
When the stop recording button is pressed no further transactions will be recorded and the macro view will open in the main application view area. From here the macro commands can be played, modified and deleted. Right-clicking on any command in the grid will open a context menu. From there the order in which the commands are executed can be altered by promoting and demoting individual commands. It also allows for individual steps to be deleted, while all commands in the macro can be deleted by selecting the clear all button in the view toolbar.
From this view the way in which steps are played can also be edited. Steps can be skipped by selected the checkbox for that command in the skip column. Similarly you can insert a break after a particular command by selecting the checkbox in its break column. When a break is added the macro will run all commands up to and including the selected command before waiting for the user’s input to continue. Alternatively a delay can be added to a command so that the macro pauses but does not stop after a command is executed. A delay can be added through the commands context menu for periods ranging from 10 milliseconds to 10 seconds.
The context column allows the subsystem which the commands are being executed on to be set based on the list of compatible subsystems in the drop-down menu. This step may need to be carried out if the current session differs from the session when the Macro was recorded.
The comment column allows the user to record non-executable comments about the operation performed in a given row.
The Register Debugger
The Register Debugger, is used to perform raw register writes to and reads from the component.
The address drop-down menu is populated with a list of all registers in the component. Changing the selected address will change the register that is written to or read from when the write button or read button is pressed. When the write button is pressed the hexadecimal value in the write data textbox will be written to the selected register and this action added to the history grid. Similarly when the read button is pressed the selected register is read from and its value populates the read data textbox. It is important to note that since this view preforms raw writes, there is no write verification step, so the value on the hardware after the write may not match the value that was written.
The history grid shows previous writes and reads performed from within this view. These writes and reads can be repeated by selecting the step to be repeated and selecting the repeat button. All previous actions can be removed from the history grid using the clear button.
Events Tool View
The Events Tool View contains a list of error, warning and information messages generated within the application software.
Messages are divided into the following sections:
- Level – Severity of the message.
- Source – Generator of the message.
- Name - Property in the source generating the message.
- Type – Category of the message. All messages are categorized as one of the follows:
- Unspecified – Informational message.
- ValueRequired – Value is invalid and must be supplied.
- ValueInvalid– The value is invalid.
- ValueOutOfRange – Value supplied is not within acceptable range.
- ConverterNotAvailable – An attempt was made to convert the value to the required type, but no converter exists.
- ValueTypeInvalid – The type of the value is incorrect, no attempt at conversion/coercion was made.
- UnknownProperty - No property was found with the specified name/binding.
- Coerced – The value was coerced to the nearest valid value, implies the value supplied was invalid.
- FileNotFound – The value as a file path was not found in the file system.
- Description – Details about why the message is occurring.
resources/tools/software/ace/understandingtheui/toolviews.txt · Last modified: 10 Feb 2021 15:29 by John McKane