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Understanding Categories

Categories are powerful organizational features that function as metadata labels for data items and application objects. They organize solutions by grouping related items, facilitating efficient data management, especially in large systems.

Creating categories involves assigning a specific label to relevant tags or objects, which can then be used as a filter or sorting parameter. For instance, in a factory setting, you may have categories like "Conveyor Belts" or "Robotic Arms", with related data points assigned to their respective categories.

Utilizing categories involves creating a category, assigning relevant items to created categories, and using these categories to filter and sort your data. This ability to view data selectively enhances solution manageabilityUsing categories, is a two-step process. First, in this user interface, you create the category items. A Category Item is a label, or can understand it as a parameters,  key, or simply a category name.

For instance, in an energy grid management solution, you could have categories such as "Generation", "Transmission", and "Distribution". When you need to analyze data from the generation process, you will filter by the "Generation" category, making it easier to focus on relevant data. Similarly, in a factory with multiple production lines, categories can help monitor and manage each line separately.In a factory you can have categories like Sensor, Output, Conveyor, Robots.

Once you have your category names, you can apply those labels to relevant tags or or configuration objects (devices, displays, alarms, queries), which can then be used as a filter or sorting parameter. 

This ability to view data selectively enhances solution manageability during the configuration process. For advanced solutions, that metadata information is also accessible though scripts, allows the creation of custom logic, or operation displays, based on that custom classification. 

In summary, to use categories:

Step 1: Define the names of categories items in this user interaface

Step 2: Go To UnifiedNamespace Tags, or Displays List, or Device Nodes, or any configuration object you want to apply the label, make the Category column visible (right-click in the column names), and apply the categories to the elements you want. 

Working with Categories

Create a Category Item

1. Go to the Insertion Row (first row of the table) in the Solution Categories table.
2. Type a text in the NAME column, optionally add Description.
3. Press ENTER.

Apply Categories to Configuration elements

1. Navigate to the configuration table of the desired element.
2. Right click on the titles of the Table, to make the Category column visible 
3. Select the Category items that applies to that element.

Working with Categories

Create a Category

To create a category, go to the solution Explorer modules sidebar, double-click on the Categories folder, and add a new one. Inform the category name and description, then click OK.

Assign Items to Categories

To assign items to a category, select the item in the Solution Explorer, go to the Properties window, and select the Category tab. From there, you can select the category to which you want to assign the item.

Display Categories on the runtime

You can use the Category Navigator widget to display categories on the runtime. To add the Category Navigator widget, go to the Toolbox, select the Category Navigator widget, and drag and drop it onto the runtime screen.

Organize the Display of Categories

You can customize the display of categories on the runtime by adjusting the properties of the Category Navigator widget. For example, you can set the width and height of the widget, change the font size and color, and specify the order in which categories are displayed.

Using Categories, you can organize and group items on runtime, making it easier to manage and navigate large and complex solutions.

You can create a dictionary of Categories to classify engineering objects. Most configuration tables have the Category column, where you can apply one or more categories to that object.

Create user-defined category labels that you can use as tag metadata. Categories are useful for filtering when creating the solution and during runtime.

1. Go to Solution → Categories.

2. Add and edit the desired categories for this solution.

To apply a Category to a Tag or any other object:

Using Categories on Runtime

The object categories can also be accessed during runtime for filtering and other custom applications from Category.

A list of all the categories that are defined in the solution during runtime is available in the property 

@Info.CategoryItem

All the configuration objects that allow to receive a category classification, like Tags, Device.Nodes, and others, they have a Category property, like in the examples:

@Tag.Tag1.Category

@Device.Node.Node1.Category property Server.Categories.

In this section: