Suggestions for ver 4.0

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oakbarn
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Suggestions for ver 4.0

Post by oakbarn »

I have been playing with 4.0 Public Beta and have the following suggestions (take with a grain of Salt as I know very little about Javascript. I do know Visual Basic (at least I did one time).

Quick Suggestions (Look and feel items only, not function OK, some function).

1. Put “Upon Exit” next to the Process Start Stop on the Edit Process Page
2. Change the look of the DIN boxes to something other than Oblong as you cannot activate them like the Outs, but only external to the User Interface. Maybe Rectangles?
3. Make the PWM Outs look different or have a colored Oblong box around them. Even better, have any Out when UNDER BCS Process or Ladder Logic control and not just manual on/off something different.
4. When you click the DCHP it throws the current IPAddress into the Static IP Address Dialog Box or simply have the Static IP Address show the Current Address and change the label from “Static” to “Current” when the DCHP is selected and to Static when the DCHP is de selected. Or maybe a Button to throw the “current” to the “Static”. This is easy to mess up and has caused my fat fingers many problems.
5. It would be nice for a lost connection button (like the Red Radio button in ver 3.7.1 to display when you lose connection.)
6. Since Manual Mode is gone, could you move the Output Control (Configurable) to the Top of Process Editor form where the “Alarm when exiting state” is now. In fact I would move “Alarm when exiting state” to the “Assert Registers” to the bottom as they are the least used if doing something manual with duty cycle. Of course adding Duty Cycle to the “Temperature Setpoint Adjustment Screen” would also solve the issue with manual mode being gone. It already will work perfectly for PID or Hysteresis as long as the Process State is running
7. I found the small “Temp Probe 0” below the Temperature gauges useful. If I had an issue, I could quickly change to another probe and know “who was on first”.
8. I would add the Temperature Scale (C or F) to either the Header or any field (setpoint) that is Temperature.
9. Button Text (The Menu Selectors on the Headers like “Settings”.) Make these any Text that you use like a button Blue like the Toggle Help (Or another Color if you want to maintain strict GUI for Hyperlinks or put an Oblong Box around them).
10. Get rid of the “Toggle Help” hyperlink as this only takes up Code Space and will be very hard to maintain and be constantly wrong. You are creating a nightmare as every time the Wiki changes or a Firmware Update happens, the Firmware Help Icon may be “broken”. Just have a “Wiki” hyperlink that takes you to the Wiki Index Page. If we get to an interactive Wiki, the Wiki should be changed quite a bit.
11. Bring Back Temp Average.
12. Add Exit Information just below the Timers to the Process State Control Panel on the Main Control Panel. This could be something as simple as next” State” if it is programmed.
13. Rename “Scale 1 max” to “Left Scale 1 Max”
14. Rename “Scale 1 min” to “Left Scale 1 Min”
15. Rename “Scale 2 max” to “Right Scale 2 Max”
16. Rename “Scale 2 min” to “Right Scale 1 Min”
17. Rename “Show Scale 2” to “Show Right Scale 2”
18. Get rid of 4 Channel Mode Checkbox. Easy enough to disable any trace. Save Programming space.
19. Rename the Time Scale Data from “Log0: Temp Probe 1{Your label}” to “Trace1: Temp Probe 1{Your label}”. Trace is better than Log.
20. I would get rid of anything that is “O” like “Temperature Probe 0”. I would renumber them all and make it Temp Probe 1 to 8 instead of Temp Probe 0 to 7.
21. I would have the Process # Static on the Process Editor and not just appear after you have updated a Process Name. o.k. I discovered this is the Previous Name and I find that confusing. I know also found it disappears on the next instance of the BCS so I will not be confused long. I think I can remember what I changed from.
It would be better if I knew the Order.
22. If you change the name and hit enter, then enter, you get a Previous Name for each click. These extra go away if you reload the BCS (Get Out totally and then come back). Getting Off the Page and then returning does not get rid of the extras. If you had another DropDown List box where you could choose the Process, by number in addition to the existing one (and tied to same data, i.e. one change both change), you could select by # or name. The same could be done for a State.
23. Not quite sure about the “Always” choice on the Process Editor Display DropDown Listbox. Even if displayed, and the Process is dead, the Panel is not interactive and shows not a lot. I can more understand the “Never”, but still cannot think when I would want to do that either.
24. Add a Popup Warning when switching between Celsius and Fahrenheit that the Setpoints are not converted to a new scale. If you have a PID set to 150 for HERMS and you change to Celsius from Fahrenheit, You will be MASHING a little warm.
25. On the Setting Menu => PID Settings, have the Labels for the Outputs to have the Client Name, not just Output O. I would prefer both the Out # and my name.
brahn
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Re: Suggestions for ver 4.0

Post by brahn »

We are not making any immediate decisions about what may be changed from 4.0 beta 1 to the 4.0 final release. We are waiting to give people some time to use 4.0 in their breweries and see what changes may be appropriate to make at this late stage.

I do want to try to clarify a couple of things to make it clear what these features are actually doing where it might not be obvious:
10. Get rid of the “Toggle Help” hyperlink as this only takes up Code Space and will be very hard to maintain and be constantly wrong. You are creating a nightmare as every time the Wiki changes or a Firmware Update happens, the Firmware Help Icon may be “broken”. Just have a “Wiki” hyperlink that takes you to the Wiki Index Page. If we get to an interactive Wiki, the Wiki should be changed quite a bit.
The Toggle Help hyperlink only removes the help icon next to each section in the UI. Those icons point to a URL that we redirect to the appropriate documentation for the given firmware version. The URL includes the version number so we can maintain multiple versions of the documentation if needed. This is a robust system and will make it much easier for someone to find the right documentation for the feature they are looking at.
18. Get rid of 4 Channel Mode Checkbox. Easy enough to disable any trace. Save Programming space.
The 4 channel mode does more than simply disable the last 4 channels. It also doubles the number of samples that are stored for the remaining 4 channels from 64 to 128.
23. Not quite sure about the “Always” choice on the Process Editor Display DropDown Listbox. Even if displayed, and the Process is dead, the Panel is not interactive and shows not a lot. I can more understand the “Never”, but still cannot think when I would want to do that either.
This was actually added at the request of our testers during the alpha phase, and I think it's great. It makes the process always visible on the main page of the UI regardless of whether it is running (and the opposite for never). That means you can hide the process list on the left hand side of the screen and control everything for your brew day from the main UI window without having to start any processes first.
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oakbarn
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Re: Suggestions for ver 4.0

Post by oakbarn »

23. Not quite sure about the “Always” choice on the Process Editor Display DropDown Listbox. Even if displayed, and the Process is dead, the Panel is not interactive and shows not a lot. I can more understand the “Never”, but still cannot think when I would want to do that either.


This was actually added at the request of our testers during the alpha phase, and I think it's great. It makes the process always visible on the main page of the UI regardless of whether it is running (and the opposite for never). That means you can hide the process list on the left hand side of the screen and control everything for your brew day from the main UI window without having to start any processes first.

I went back. I made an error. It is INTERACTIVE. I clicked the Process Name like you do on the side panel and nothing. Click on a State and it ASSERTS. It is a nice new feature!
Edit:
Even better, you can Click on the Process Name and it will ASSERT. You have to be on the Name of the Process and not just in the Top Box. There is no oblong border around the Name of the Process but directly Clicking works. I discovered this with the Tool Tip when I moved the mouse over the name.
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