Setpoint slider

A handle between two ends: the drag arms the value, the key writes it, and the handle otherwise follows the plant.

View as Markdown

Setpoint slider moves a setpoint by gesture instead of typing. Its protection against the one accident a slider can have is the two-step rule: the drag arms, the key writes. Moving the handle changes nothing outside the screen — it only states the value being asked for — and the plant is touched when the operator presses the send key beside it. A sleeve crossing a touch screen ends in a release like any other drag, so writing on release would send exactly the gesture nobody meant. It is a Control component; a new one occupies 6 × 1 cells.

The control draws no reading of its own; compose a Value beside the travel if the number should be on screen.

Data

Field What it does Values Default
Address The rooted Logic address the setpoint lands in and is read back from: a memory variable or a writable tag. The list is narrowed to writable points. Free text; writable-point suggestions empty

Format

Field What it does Values Default
Decimals Decimal places the armed value and the answer line are written with — the two places this control writes a number. Blank follows the station's decimal preference. Out-of-band counts are taken at the edge and the panel says so. 0 to 15, or blank blank

Travel

Where the handle may go and where it may stop. The ends are the control's own declaration, not a reading — which is why the handle still travels while the point says nothing.

Field What it does Values Default
Minimum Where the travel starts. Any finite number 0
Maximum Where the travel ends. At or below the minimum there is nothing to travel: the panel warns, and the slider is disabled because it would send nothing. Any finite number 100
Step The smallest move the handle makes. Every position it stops at is a whole number of steps off the minimum, so the value sent is always one of the declared stops. A step that does not divide the travel is allowed, and the panel says where the last stop falls — the maximum is then not a value this slider sends. Any positive finite number 1

How it behaves

  • Following the plant. With nothing armed, the handle stands at the point's own reading. A reading outside the declared travel — or no good reading at all — draws no handle: a thumb parked at the minimum would be a setpoint the screen invented.
  • Arming. The first touch freezes the handle where the point last reported it and tints the control, which is the operator being told he is now holding it. Dragging snaps to the stops and clamps into the travel. The armed value is this screen's alone: it reaches no other circuit and nothing draws it as a reading.
  • The send key names its consequence before the finger lands: it reads "Set 42.5" while a value is armed. A sent value hands the handle back to the point; one the funnel refused stays armed, so the correction is a nudge and not the whole gesture again.
  • The ✕ key releases the handle back to the point — the way out of an arming nobody meant. It is always on the row (disabled while nothing is armed), so keys never move under the finger.
  • To a screen reader the slider speaks the armed value ("42.5, not sent yet"), the point's own reading, or "No reading" — never a number the point did not report.

Write semantics

The send key writes the armed value through the station's single logic funnel. A point that cannot hold a number answers with the refusal on the control's line; a successful send answers "42.5 written". Values arrived at by stepping are tidied of binary residue before sending, so a setpoint never reaches the plant as 0.30000000000000004. Authorization is re-checked at the press, and the answer line expires after a few seconds.

Permissions and the lock

Sending needs the role permission to operate dashboards. Locked, the travel and the send key are disabled and the component wears the shared lock mark with the reason in its tooltip (see the dashboards page). A bound point that fails to read wears the shared bad-reading mark; the control itself stays usable, since a setpoint is an absolute value and asks for no reading first.

The shared Appearance, Identification, Position and layer and Actions sections are described on the components page.