Solution Categories

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.

Using 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". 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

In the Insertion Row (first row of the table), type a text in the NAME column, optionally add Description and 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.

 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:

1. Open the DataGrid Configuration Table for that object.

2. Set the column Category to be visible.

3. Edit the contents of that column. It is possible to select multiple rows. 

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 Server.Categories.

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