FBEditor Controls

Tabs
As library elements are opened (e.g., with the File Open menu item) their tabs are added to this area. You can navigate to an open element by clicking on its tab. When an element is closed with the Close Tab button, its tab is removed from this area.

Close Tab
Clicking on this button closes the library element in the currently selected tab. If there are unsaved changes, you will be asked whether you really want to close it and discard the changes.

Status Line
This area provides a short description of the currently selected item, and may also show error messages. It also shows the currently executing configuration command when the Run/Launch menu item is used.

Navigation Tree

1. You can use this control to choose what will be displayed on the Worksheet area, including:
   • the external interface, including events and variables and their WITH associations
   • the Execution Control Chart (ECC) for basic function block types
   • service primitive sequences for service interface function block types
   • function block networks for composite function block types; device and resource types and instances; system configurations; and algorithms in the IEC 61131-3 FBD language
   • ladder diagrams for algorithms in the IEC 61131-3 LD language
2. You can edit a Properties element by double-clicking on the corresponding item.
3. You can edit an algorithm by double-clicking on the algorithm name.
4. When editing a system configuration:
   • You can use a popup menu to move a resource from one device to another (or to the top of the list of resources of its current device).
   • You can use the Up/Down buttons to change the order of resources within a device or devices within the system (this will affect the order in which devices and resources are initialized at runtime).

Worksheet/Viewport

1. This area contains a "worksheet" area which may be larger than or equal to the "viewport" frame. If the worksheet is larger than the viewport, scrollbars appear to assist navigation.
2. When you click the mouse over elements in this area (including vertical line segments), the corresponding declaration will be highlighted in the Text Area.
3. When a function block diagram is displayed in this area, double clicking on the body of a function block instance will open its type definition in a new editor window.
4. You can drag various elements in this area (including function blocks, connecting line segments, and elements of ECCs) to improve readability. You can move a selected element around one pixel at a time with the Alt+arrow keys.
   The "handle" for dragging a function block, resource or device instance is the element name at the top of the element.
5. You can select and drag multiple elements using Shift+Click and Shift+Drag gestures.
6. You can add connections to a diagram using the Connect gesture.
7. The popup menu for this area contains the following items:
   • New - Presents options for adding appropriate elements to the diagram.
   • Redraw
     • Diagram - Restores all nodes of the diagram to a "best effort" layout in the worksheet and then redraws the connections.
     • Connections - makes a "best effort" to redraw the connections on the canvas as orthogonal lines.
     • These are fairly radical operations and cause the loss of all previous positioning operations. Use sparingly and with caution! You can recover the previous layout with the Revert button, but this will be at the price of losing any other changes you have made since the file was last saved.
   • Worksheet
     • Larger - Increases the worksheet height and width by a factor of 1.5 without redrawing the diagram.
     • Fit to Viewport - Matches the worksheet size to the viewport without redrawing the diagram. This may cause the diagram to "overflow" the worksheet boundaries.
   • Font - Allows you to adjust the font size.
     Since diagrams are scaled to the font size, this also resizes the entire diagram.
   • Parameters - When this item is checked, all parameters are shown on the diagram; when it is not checked, parameter hiding is enabled.
8. Additional popup menus provide for editing the elements of ECCs, FB diagrams, and Ladder Diagrams, and interfaces of FB, device and resource types.

Text Area
This area contains two scrollable text panes:

• XML - This pane shows the IEC 61499-2 XML source text of the library element being edited. All of the Edit Menu operations are available in this pane.
• src - This pane shows the IEC 61499-1 source text of the library element being edited. This pane is read-only; its text is derived from the XML source. Portions of this text may, however, be selected and copied to the system clipboard for pasting elsewhere.

Resize Bars
Dragging on these bars changes the relative size of the Viewport, Navigation and Text areas. If this operation results in the length or width of the Viewport being larger than the respective dimension of the Worksheet, it will be adjusted along either or both of these dimensions to fit the larger Viewport.

Exit - This button closes the FBEditor application. If there are unsaved changes in any of the currently open library elements, you will be asked whether you really want to exit and discard the changes.

Menu Bar Items

• Open - This button opens a file dialog so you can launch a new editor window on a library element encoded in the standard XML format defined in IEC 61499-2.
  If there is an error in the source code, you can try to fix it and reload it using the Parse button. If this works, be sure to save your work!
• New - This drop-down menu enables you to create a new basic, composite, proxy or service interface function block type; an adapter, resource, device, or data type; or a system configuration.
• SaveAs - This button opens a dialog box to save the library element in the current tab in XML, HTML, Java and/or PNG formats.
• Parse - This button parses the contents of the XML Text Area.
  • If the parse succeeds, all areas of the display will be updated accordingly.
  • If the parse fails, an error message is given in the Status Line and the line in which the error was detected is highlighted in the XML Text Area.
• Revert - This button first opens a dialog to confirm that you want to discard any changes you may have made. If you answer Yes, the currently displayed library element is replaced with its most recently saved version.
• Move Up/Down - One or both of these buttons is enabled when it is possible to move a selected element up or down in a list, e.g., a state, transition or action in an ECC, a device within a system configuration or a resource within a device type or instance.
• Apply Tag - When enabled, clicking on this button applies a tag to a function block instance. See the Tagged Data Design Pattern for further information.
• Edit - This drop-down menu provides the usual Cut, Copy, Paste and Delete operations on the Text Area. In addition, a Find/Replace menu item opens a dialog box for Find, Replace, and Replace All operations on the Text Area.
  The Find operation is case sensitive.
• Terminate - This drop-down menu provides a list of previously launched runtime processes, if any. Clicking on the process entry will shut it down.
• Run - This button is enabled only when a system configuration or function block type is being edited. When enabled, clicking it creates a new instance of the function block type and an appropriate panel with controls for testing it, or a new system image populated with the specified objects.
  • A new instance of a function block type will only be created if a corresponding compiled Java .class file exists; otherwise, an UNSUPPORTED_TYPE error will be displayed in the Status Line.
  • See the documentation on Testing a System Configuration for the use of this button in that situation.
  • A batch file is also provided for launching a function block tester or system configuration independently of the FBEditor application.
• Preferences - This button opens the Preferences dialog to set parameters for file locations, runtime behaviors, and GUI look and feel.
• Help - This drop-down menu has the following options:
  • FBEditor Help - Takes you to this help information.
  • How To... - Takes you to the How To help page.
  • Design Patterns - Takes you to the Design Patterns help page.
  • Compliance Profile - Takes you to the IEC 61499Compliance Profile for feasibility demonstrations, to which the FBDK complies.
  • FBDK Group - Takes you to the FBDK Discussion Group on the Web.
  • Download Center - Takes you to the FBDK Download Center on the Web.
  • In order for the above items to work properly, the path to your browser must be properly configured, using the Preferences dialog.
  • About FBEditor - Provides version and copyright information about this application.