The dashboard mechanism allows to create new tabs with an arbitrary set of tools for efficient work with devices connected to the satellite bus.

Dashboards can be configured to work effectively with a specific device. According to the user's preferences, tools can be placed for analyzing telemetry coming from the device and the necessary control commands or sets of commands can be generated for operational control of the device, including without using the command queue window. An example of the appearance of the panel is shown in the figure.

Dashboard example Three kinds of tools are supported

• plots;
• field value tracking (Watch);
• buttons send commands (Actions).

The dashboard menu includes the following items:

• Enable/Disable - activation of receiving data on the panel; with Enable, the plot continues to be built using the received data; with Disable, the plot is stopped;
• Add – adding a new plot to the panel;
• Panel – panel export to file racks\*.hir type;
• Plots – setting Autoscale mode for automatic scaling of plots.

To create a new panel, select in the menu «Window - New instrument panel», then a dialog box appears for entering the name of the new panel:

The window for entering the name of the new panel

In the input window should indicate:

• Object name - panel name;
• Location - initial placement of the panel in the main HA software window (can be changed later).

After entering the data, click Ok. A new dashboard appears inside the HA software main window.

Figure 30 – An example of a new dashboard

After creating a new dashboard, menus for inserting controls become available.

To create a chart by field, need to configure the chart output area, this is done in the dashboard menu «Add - CustomPlot …» and fill in the fields of the dialog box.

Plot settings window

Where:

• Title - name of print area;
• Legend - show legend on a plot;
• X axis name - X axis display name;
• Y axis name - Y axis display name;
• Store points - number of plot points (large values can cause performance problems for fast data flow);
• Visible points – number of points displayed.

After entering the data, click Ok.

On the «Fields» command panel, context menu items will be available for displaying parameter values on the dashboard. A command in the «Fields» panel whose fields include the value whose values you want to display should be opened. By right-clicking on the input field of a value of interest, a context menu opens. Selecting «Add to plot» opens a list of formed dashboards and their elements - plots and fields of the last «Watch» value. Click on the corresponding plot or field «Watch».

Context menu for displaying a parameter on the dashboard

To install a command button on the dashboard, right-click the corresponding command in the «Fields» panel (figure 33). In the context menu that opens, select «Add to rack». A list of dashboards opens, where you can select the panel to install the command button. Similarly, you can set the command button from the «Queue» panel.

Insert command buttons

For the new button, the name should be specified in the opened window.

Button name entry window

New buttons are installed on the dashboard, the first 10 buttons are added «hot keys» from the keys “0” to “9” (numbers on the main panel of the keyboard).

An example of a formed dashboard

The formed dashboard can be saved to a file. To do this, select «Panel - Export …» in the dashboard menu and select a file name. The file has the extension «.hir» and is an xml-structure that can be edited using XmlPad or any text editor.

When the program loads, panels are automatically loaded, the*.hir files of which are in the \Resources\Racks folder.

If panel loading errors occur, error descriptions will be displayed in the message window, and problem items will not be placed on the dashboard. Errors usually occur when a downloadable panel was created with a different set of satellite map files and device protocols.

Activation of receiving data on the panel is carried out by pressing the Enable/Disable menu. When starting HA software, all panels are active.

With a large flow of information and the use of several active panels with plots, performance problems may occur. To reduce the load on HA software, it is recommended not to display many panels at the same time, but to make tabs of them. Unused panels can be disabled, or disable Autoscale mode for plots.

Any items added to the panel can be removed from the context menu.

The panels themselves can be unloaded from the program through the «Window - Destroy dock widget» menu.

Example of plotting a graph

The build area supports the following functions:

• scaling of plots (along both axes or along one axis);
• double-click to edit the area name and axis labels;
• auto zoom (Plots - Autoscale);
• Legend - show/hide/move description of plots symbols;
• Save plot - saving the current image to a graphic file (png, jpeg, pdf, bmp);
• Save plot data - saving the data of the selected plot to a .csv file (attention, uploading a large amount of data can take a lot of time);
• Refresh – plot redrawing;
• Clear data - clear previous plot data;
• Change data depth – number of points displayed on the plot;
• Remove all graphs – delete plotted graphs;
• Remove Custom plot element – removing the plotting field.

To get the exact value at the selected point in the graph, select the graph and double-click to create a «marker» at the point of interest. The status panel displays the values of this point in the plot (figure 37).

An example of determining a value at a point in a graph

Buttons for sending commands can be configured to send one or more commands. In the latter case, a pause of 1 ms is inserted between sending commands. The composition of the commands corresponding to the button can be seen in the «tooltip» when you mouse over the button area.

Button popup list of commands

When adding a button to the panel, the first 10 are assigned «hot keys», which are indicated in brackets after the name of the button. When a hot key is pressed, the same sequence is sent as a mouse click on a button. The action is confirmed by displaying the message in the history panel. For the hot keys to work correctly, it is necessary that the focus (cursor) be on the button area at the moment of pressing.

Allows quickly track the last value of the selected field on the dashboard. It is recommended to use for fields that rarely change their value.