Models and folders
The Models root and its cards, a model's own page with its identity and structure, Copy model and Delete model, and the folders models, reports and labels are filed into.
A model is the type: the abstract channels, the metadata catalogue, the automation, the productivity rules and the printers a process is defined by, plus the libraries and procedures a product asks of it. It is realized on units, the physical stations, and every unit runs the whole definition against sources of its own. This page covers the Models root, a model's own page, copying and deleting a model, and the folders of the Workspace column. The units table on the model's page has a page of its own: Units.
Models are read by every Process level; creating, renaming, copying, filing and deleting one needs Manage process.
The Models root
Selecting Models opens a wall of cards under the line "Each model defines abstract channels once, then concretizes them on units to run recorded, evaluated tests." One card per model or folder, with the row's glyph and name; clicking a card opens it. A model's card carries a Remove icon in the danger ink that runs Delete model (below); a folder's card carries none, because a folder is not a row that can be deleted from here. With no model the wall reads "No models yet. Add one."
| Command | What it does | Greyed when | Not drawn when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Model (bar) | Creates "New model" at the Models root and selects it. | The station is locked ("Configuration is locked while a Unit is running." or "Runtime stopped"). | The role lacks Manage process. |
| New model (New… menu; right-click on the root) | The same, from the column footer or the root's menu. | The same. | The same. |
A model is born empty: no channel, no unit, no library, no procedure. Its four groups and their rows exist at once, so the column already shows where each thing goes; only its Panels row already reads as one default panel, until you declare one of your own.
A model's page
Selecting a model opens the page that says what it is and where it runs, under the line "A procedure model: abstract channels declared once, what a product on the bench asks of them, and the units it is run on." The header carries two pills: rev <revision> and the unit count.
Identity
| Field | What it is | Values / default | Effect |
|---|---|---|---|
| Name | The public address prefix: every unit of the model answers at Process.<Model>.<Unit>. |
Free text; "New model" at creation. The address segment keeps letters and digits, turns anything else into _, and prefixes a leading digit with _. |
Committing (Enter, or leaving the field) is a coordinated rename: every live textual reference to the old address is rewritten with it. While you type, the line under the field previews the reach: "Checking references…", then "Renaming updates the 3 locations that read this address.", "No references use the current address." or "The effective address does not change; no references need updating." A name whose segment another model already maps to is refused on the field: "Process model name 'X' maps to address segment 'Y', already used by 'Z'." |
| Revision | Free text carried into every run snapshot for traceability. | Any text; blank. | Shown in the rev pill and frozen into every run started afterwards. Nothing enforces or increments it. |
| Notes | Free text for people. | Any text; blank. | Nothing reads it. |
The Name field is disabled without Manage process and while the station is locked; Revision and Notes autosave when you leave the field.
Units
The Units card stands between Identity and Structure and is drawn only for Manage process: the stations the model is realized on, each with its name, code, notes and channel coverage. It is described on Units.
Structure
The last card, "What this model is made of, by how often each changes: the structure of the process, how it shows itself, what the product on the bench asks of it, and the units it is run on. Click one to open it.", is four tiles: Definition, Visualization and Setup by name, and Operate with its unit count. Each tile selects that group in the column.
Copy model
Copy model stands on the model's bar and in its right-click menu (Manage process; greyed while the station is locked). It makes a model of your own out of the selected one, selects the copy and reports "Copied 'X' to 'Y'. The copy is yours to edit."
What travels, every row under a fresh identity and every reference between rows remapped onto the copies:
- the identity row: revision, notes, the External stop switch with its default signal and polarity, the default rolling period and named quantities, the four default printer queues;
- the channels with their number, name, alias, alias scope, role, type, engineering unit, color and group;
- the metadata catalogue with its sequence parts;
- the panels with their cards, and the model's dashboards (each saved as a dashboard of the copy, its addresses rewritten from the old model name to the new one);
- the datalogs, the recipes with setpoints and segments, the evaluations with criteria, the occurrences, the alias sets with entries, the actions with their commands and marker mappings, and the procedures with their selections;
- the units with their bindings, their own quantities, their own printer slots and interlock source, and their automation (command sources, selector codes, metadata mappings, PLC returns).
What does not travel: the sequential counter states (a copied field starts from its initial value and never shares the original's reservations), the folder (the copy lands at the Models root), and the example mark of a shipped model. Everything that points outside the model (bound tags and variables, interlock and automation sources, report and label templates, printer queue names) keeps its value, so the copy points at what the original pointed at; Validation lists the references you may want to swap.
The copy takes the source's name while it is free, then "Name (2)", "Name (3)"; both the display name and its address segment must be free. A refused save reports "Model was not copied: …" and leaves nothing behind; a dashboard that fails to save costs the copy that one surface and reports "Screen 'S' was not copied: …".
Delete model
Delete model is the ending verb of the model's bar and menu, and the Remove icon on its card at the Models root or in its folder (Manage process; greyed while locked). It confirms first: "Delete 'X'? This removes the model and everything defined under it. A model in use cannot be deleted. This cannot be undone."
The station refuses, in the action feed, "Cannot delete a model while one of its units is busy with a run operation." and "Cannot delete a model while one of its Units has a latched interlock." A deleted model takes its units, libraries, procedures, panels and dashboards with it; its recorded runs stay in Histories untouched, because a run file is independent of the configuration that produced it. After the deletion the selection falls back to the Models root and the feed reads "Deleted."
Folders
Models, Reports and Labels each take folders of your own, two levels deep at most. A folder is where rows are listed and nothing else: it never enters an address (a unit stays Process.<Model>.<Unit> whatever folder its model sits in), and filing rewrites no reference. Names compare without case, so "Benches" and "benches" are one folder, drawn under the spelling seen first. Folders are drawn first, by name, above the rows nobody filed.
| Command | Where | What it does | Refused |
|---|---|---|---|
| New folder > Models / Reports / Labels | The column's New… menu | Opens an empty folder at that root, named "New folder" (then "New folder 2", …), with its name field open on the row. Esc leaves it called "New folder". | Locked station; Manage process missing. |
| Folder | The bar of a folder; New folder in its right-click menu | Opens a subfolder inside the selected folder. | "This folder is already as deep as folders nest." on a second-level folder. |
| Model / Report / Label | The bar of a folder; New model / New report / New label in its menu | Creates the row inside that folder. | Locked station. |
| Move to | The right-click menu of a model, a report or a label | A submenu: A new folder (born holding the row), A new subfolder here (only from inside a first-level folder), Models root / Reports root / Labels root (greyed while the row already sits there), then every existing folder of the category except the current one. | "That folder is nested deeper than folders go here." |
| Rename folder | The bar and the menu of a folder | Opens the name on the row; every row inside, subfolders included, is re-filed under the new name, and what you had open stays open. | "A folder needs a name, and a name cannot contain '/'."; "There is already a folder named 'X' here." (merging two folders is a move, not a rename). Re-spelling the same name is allowed. |
| Remove folder | The bar (danger cluster) and the menu of a folder | Confirms "Remove the folder 'X'?", or "Remove the folder 'X'? Its 3 models move back to the Models root. Nothing is deleted.", then returns every row inside to the category root and withdraws the folder. | Locked station. |
A folder's page lists what is filed in it as cards, under "The models filed here. A folder organizes the column and nothing else." (or the reports, or the labels). An empty one reads "This folder holds nothing yet. Add something to it, or move a row in from the column." Each card opens its row; a model, report or label card carries the Remove icon that deletes that row (Delete model, "Delete report", "Delete label template", each with its own confirmation).
A role at the Edit recipes & evaluations level keeps the folders it sees the models through, but cannot create, rename, move or remove one.
The four group pages
Definition, Visualization and Setup open the same panel: the group's name, its one-line description (quoted on Process) and a Contents card, "What this group holds. Click one to jump straight to it.", with one tile per row. A tile standing for a list shows its count (Channels, Metadata, Dashboards, Panels, Occurrences, Aliases, Datalogs, Recipes, Evaluations, Actions, Procedures); Automation, Productivity and Printers show their name, because each is one setting rather than a number of rows. Operate opens a different panel, the units with their live status, described on Units.
None of the four pages carries a bar or edits anything.
What this page does not do
- Nothing about a unit is configured here beyond its name, code and notes: bindings, counters, interlock, automation, productivity and printers are configured on the five Definition screens, each showing every unit at once.
- A model is not reordered, and its name is not edited from the tree.
- A model in a folder is not addressed through the folder, and moving it changes nothing that reads it.
- Nothing is undone: Copy model is the way to keep a version, and a recorded run keeps the configuration that produced it whatever happens to the model.