Supported features in Mobile Access

This is a list of the features that are currently supported in project screens when they are viewed in the Mobile Access web interface.

Screen objects and animations

The following table shows exactly which screen attributes, objects, and animations are supported in project screens, as well as the specific properties that are supported on each one:

The Windows-based Virtual Keyboard (VK) is not used for data input on any screen objects or animations. Instead, if input is required from the user, a customized Data Input dialog box is displayed and the client station's own keyboard — on-screen for tablets and smartphones, physical for other computers — is used. For more information, see Data Input.

The Auto Format, Security, and Key properties — which are common to most screen objects and animations — are not supported unless otherwise noted. The Enable Translation option is supported with some limitations; see "Translation" below.

Alarm/Event Control object

The Alarm/Event Control object is supported in project screens on Mobile Access, and it appears and behaves essentially the same as it does in the other, Windows-based thin clients. Nevertheless, you should thoroughly test your project on both types of clients in order to confirm that your Alarm/Event Control object(s) behave as expected during project run time.

The following list describes the specific object properties and features that are supported on Mobile Access:

• Type: All types (Alarm Online, Alarm History, Alarm History + Event, Event) are supported.

  For projects that run in the SCADA runtime edition for Windows, all history formats (Proprietary, Database, Binary) are supported.

  For projects that run in IoT View, alarm history can be saved in the Proprietary and Database formats. If alarm and event history are being saved together, they can be saved in the Proprietary format only.

• Filters: All options are supported, except Filter Expression for Alarm Online.

• Columns:

  • All available columns are supported, except Delete Message.

  • The Value column is supported and intended to display the tag value at the time when the alarm occurs. However, if values are configured for the three tag fields, those configured values are not displayed in the Alarm Control.

  • Properties: Label, Width, Align.

  • As noted above, the Key feature is not supported in any screen object on Mobile Access.

• Advanced:

  • Date and Time Format: All options are supported.

  • Delete Message: Not supported.

  • Acknowledgement: All properties are supported, except the Security feature which is not supported in any screen object on Mobile Access.

  • Run-time Returned Values: All properties are supported, except Summary Changes. Please note that you must specify arrays for First Row Text and Selected Row Text.

  • Run-time Dialog Triggers: Not supported.

  • Save/Print: Not supported.

  • Navigation Triggers: Not supported.

  • As noted above, the Auto Format feature is not supported in any screen object on Mobile Access.

• Fonts: All options are supported, except Strikeout, Underline, and Script.

• Format: All options are supported, except background color fill effects which are not supported in any screen object on Mobile Access.

• E-Sign: This works as documented.

Trend Control object

The Trend Control object is supported in project screens on Mobile Access, but it appears and behaves somewhat differently than it does in the other, Windows-based thin clients, more so than can be described in this documentation. You should thoroughly test your project on both types of clients in order to become familiar with the differences. In particular, note the differences in behavior of the cursor and toolbar.

The toolbar includes print and export, and a cursor that shows the values at the selected time. On touch devices, slide to move through the trend history.

You can use multi-touch gestures to manipulate the Trend Control object, assuming your Mobile Access device has touchscreen input. For example, you can "pinch" and "stretch" to zoom (for example, to change the X-axis scale) and you can "slide" to pan (for example, to change the X-axis period).

The following list describes the specific object properties and features that are supported on Mobile Access:

• Points:

  • Supported properties: Label, Color, Tag/Field, Hide.

  • Data Source: Tag only. All tags must be specified in Trend worksheets, but both online (that is, current) and historical values can be displayed.

• Data Sources: No other data sources are supported. All tags must be specified in Trend worksheets.

  Note: The Trend Control object on Mobile Access is not compatible with AVEVA Historian. For more information, see the AVEVA Historian entry under "Important features not supported" below.

• Axes:

  • X Axis: For the Date/Time data type, Period must be Auto. For the X Axis Data Type, only Date/Time is supported. Numeric is not supported at this time.

  • Y Axis: Only Min and Max are supported at this time.

• Legend:

  • The entire legend can be shown or hidden, by selecting or clearing the Show legend option. If no fields are selected to be visible, however, then the legend will be automatically hidden.

  • Only the Label property is supported at this time, and it displays the label that is configured in the Points section above. Additional properties will be supported in future releases of this software.

• Toolbar:

  • The entire toolbar can be shown or hidden, by selecting or clearing the Show toolbar option.

  • Supported commands: Run, Stop, Zoom In, Zoom Out, Cancel Zoom, Cursor, Auto Scale.

  • If the toolbar is hidden, you can use activation tags to trigger the supported commands.

  • You can specify tooltips for the supported commands.

• Advanced:

  • Update trigger is supported.

  • "Move to current time on run" is the default behavior of the Trend Control object on Mobile Access. If the option is cleared, it will be ignored.

  • Decimation is the default behavior of the Trend Control object on Mobile Access. It cannot be disabled, and any changes in the configuration will be ignored.

Grid object

The Grid object is supported in project screens on Mobile Access, and it appears and behaves essentially the same as it does in the other, Windows-based thin clients. Nevertheless, you should thoroughly test your project on both types of clients in order to confirm that your Grid object(s) behave as expected during project run time.

The most significant limitation is that only the Database source type is supported; the Text File and Class Tag source types are not supported at this time. Also, only the default database connection (either Primary or Secondary) is supported; if you configure a Grid object to use a database connection other than than the default, it will not be supported on Mobile Access. You can use any table in the default database, however.

The following list describes the other, specific object properties and features that are supported on Mobile Access:

• Columns:

  • Supported properties: Label, Field, Type (all except Picture), Width, Input.

  • The Label field accepts string expressions (tag only, for example {MyLabel}) in order to configure a column label during project run time, but the value of the tag is read only when the project screen is opened. Using Reload to reload the contents of the Grid object does not also reload the column label.

• Advanced:

  • Supported properties: Selected Values, Number of Rows, Row Number, Condition (see below), Reload, Save Trigger, Insert Trigger, Inserted Values, Save on data change.

  • When using the Condition property to filter the grid rows, Date/Time data types are not supported. In other words, if a grid column is configured so that its Type is one of the Date, Time, or Date/Time options, then you cannot enter a condition expression that filters the grid rows according to the values in that column.

  • For the Selected Values and Inserted Values properties, you can include an array index in order to specify the starting position (offset), but that index must be a literal value and not a project tag. For example, MyArray[3] is valid but MyArray[GridRowStartPos] is not.

• Fonts: All configurations are supported.

• Colors: All configurations are supported.

• E-Sign: This works as documented.

There are some further limitations when running Mobile Access on IoT View:

• IoT View cannot automatically create the database table the Grid object's source, so you must run your project at least once on Windows or Windows Embedded in order to create that table. For more information, see Database Configuration.

• With regards to database time stamps, IoT View supports only Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).

• IoT View does not support the Condition property (under Advanced).

Translation

The Translation Table feature, the Enable Translation option on most screen objects, and the associated Translation functions are all supported on Mobile Access, but with the following limitations.

First, customized fonts and date formats for target languages are not supported. Second, only project texts — that is, the text you add to screens and worksheets as you develop your project — can be translated; the other options in the Origin menu in the Translation Table worksheet are not supported, which means user interface elements like menus and dialog boxes cannot be translated. And third, the Translate before parsing strings in curly brackets and Enable alarm/event delimiters options in the advanced settings are not supported. For more information, see Project Localization.

Custom properties

Custom properties (formerly known as "mnemonics") are supported in project screens on Mobile Access, but only for object properties that are themselves supported, as described in the table above. For more information, see Use custom properties to set property values when screens are opened.

Multiple screens and screen groups

You can open multiple screens and screen groups in the Mobile Access web interface, just as you normally would in other thin clients.

It is not possible at this time, however, to make screen groups available through the Screens control. (The Screens control is a part of the Mobile Access web interface that allows the user to view selected project screens.) Instead, to open a screen group, you must do one of the following:

• In another screen, configure a screen object or script to call the Open function to open the screen group, and then have the user view that other screen first; or

• Link directly to the screen group file. For more information, see Link directly to a project screen or screen group.

Multi-touch gestures

You can use certain multi-touch gestures in project screens — specifically, you can use the "pinch" and "stretch" gestures to zoom a screen, and you can use the "slide" gesture to pan a screen that has been zoomed. No other gestures are supported at this time, however. For more information, see Using multi-touch gestures in project screens.

Built-in functions

Many but not all of Studio's built-in functions are supported in project screens. To see if a specific function is supported, please refer to the documentation for that function. The function will be marked either "Supported", "Not Supported", or "Executed on Server", and there might be additional notes describing how the function is executed in Mobile Access.

Functions that are marked "Executed on Server" are executed via remote procedure call (RPC) on the project runtime server. While these functions are supported, you should avoid using a large number of them in any project screens that you include in Mobile Access. The extra communication required between server and client can affect runtime performance.

Also, please note that because Database/ERP functions are executed on the server, they affect server tags (tags with Server scope) rather than local tags (tags with Local scope), and that might result in unexpected behavior when multiple clients try to execute the functions at the same time. As such, you should avoid specifying optional parameters that take tag names — for example, if you call the function DBCursorOpen, do not specify the parameters optStrTags and optStrTagError.

For more information, see Appendix: Built-in Language. More functions will be supported in future releases of this software.

VBScript

Most VBScript interfaces — including the VBScript Graphics Script, the VBScript screen scripts, and Command animations on screen objects — are supported in project screens in Mobile Access. Most VBScript and built-in functions, commands, and syntax can be used the same as they are outside of Mobile Access, with the following exceptions and limitations:

VBScript functions that return as Date

VBScript functions that return values as the Date type are not yet supported in Mobile Access. These functions include the following:

• Date

• Time

• Now

• DateAdd

• DateSerial

• DateValue

• TimeSerial

• TimeValue

  Functions that open project screens and display dialog boxes

  Functions that open project screens and display dialog boxes can be called from the Screen Script and Command animations, but they cannot be called from the Graphics Script. These functions include the built-in functions Open, LogOn, and ShowMessageBox, as well as the VBScript function MsgBox.

  Dialog boxes are displayed as modal windows in the Mobile Access web interface. In other words, when a function displays a dialog box, project screens in the background will not be updated until the user closes that dialog box.

  Calling variables and procedures declared in the Graphics Script

  Normally, variables and procedures that have been defined in the Graphics Script can be called from the other VBScript interfaces using the syntax Graphics.variable_name or Graphics.procedure_name, respectively. This feature is not supported on Mobile Access, however, because in the Mobile Access web interface, the Graphics Script and each project screen runs in its own thread separate from the others.

  For variables that you want to be global, use project tags instead. For procedures that you want to be global, define them in VBScript Global Procedures and then run them using the function RunGlobalProcedureOnServer.

  System tags GroupCNFLoLevel and GroupCNFHiLevel

  The pre-defined system tags GroupCNFLoLevel and GroupCNFHiLevel are not supported in Mobile Access. In fact, these tags have been deprecated; if you want to check the security levels to which the user has access, use the function CheckSecurityLevel instead.

  Setting a project tag to an empty value

  When a project tag is given an empty value — for example, when it is set to equal the VBScript keyword Empty — an error message is sent to the log and the actual value of the tag is not changed. In other words, the project tag retains its existing value.

  Tag fields

  The following tag fields are supported on each type of project tag in Mobile Access:

The script/expression compiler used in Mobile Access and IoT View is stricter than the one used elsewhere in Studio. It will not accept references to unsupported tag fields. For example, if you try to reference MyString->B0 anywhere else in Studio, the compiler will accept the reference and then simply return 0 or some other invalid value. In Mobile Access and IoT View, however, a runtime error will be generated because B0 is not supported on String tags. You can check for such errors in the log.

For more information about tag fields, see Reference a tag property instead of a project tag.

Tag changes in the Event Logger

When a project tag is changed using VBScript in Mobile Access, that change will be logged in the Event Logger with the client's IP address instead of its host name.

Date formats and time zones

While the server and clients may have their respective system times, Mobile Access always uses the server's date format and time zone settings when it opens project screens. It is not possible for the server and clients to have different settings, so viewing project screens on clients with different settings may result in unexpected behavior during run time. (It is okay to use the Alarm, Process Values, and Trend controls in the web interface, because they do not include any VBScript that might be affected by this limitation.)

As a workaround, you can change the time zone setting on your client to match the server, but if that is not practical and you must view your project screens while in a different time zone, use our traditional Thin Client software instead of Mobile Access.

Boolean tags

Mobile Access does not support the legacy method for handling Boolean tags (project tags of Boolean type) in VBScript. Boolean tags are always handled as if they have a numerical value of -1 for TRUE, to ensure compatibility with Boolean variables in VBScript. Editing your project file to change the property VBBoolean will not override this. For more information, see How Boolean tags are handled in VBScript.

Statement continuation with comments

In VBScript, you can use an underscore character to indicate that a statement is continued to the next line. Programmers often do this to make a long statement easier to read. For example:

MyArray = Array("FIRST_NAME", _

"LAST_NAME", _

"ADDRESS")

Without the underscore character, the end of the line would also be the end of the statement.

The VBScript compiler in Mobile Access supports continuing a statement like this, except for the following limitation: in MsgBox statements and function calls, you cannot insert a comment after an underscore character. For example:

MyVar = MsgBox("Hello World!", _ 'This is a comment

65, _ 'This is another comment

"MsgBox Example")

This code would not be accepted by the VBScript compiler in Mobile Access, and the resulting compiler error could prevent a project screen from opening at all.

For more information about using VBScript in your project, see Overview of VBScript.

Important features not supported

Mobile Access supports only the features listed above and with the limitations mentioned. Among the features not supported, the following ones are most commonly used:

Selecting from a list of users to log on

The Mobile Access Logon screen does not support selecting from a list of users. The user must know and type their user name. For more information, see Log on to the Mobile Access web interface.

Tag updates while built-in dialog boxes are displayed

Certain built-in dialog boxes (such as MsgBox, LogOn) act like modal windows when they are displayed on the Mobile Access client, even though they are displayed within the web browser. As such, open project screens will stop receiving tag updates from the project runtime server — and consequently, animations in the project screens might appear to freeze — while one of those dialog boxes is displayed. The tag updates will resume as soon as the user closes the dialog box. Please note that this limitation does not apply to Popup-style project screens, which can appear similar to those dialog boxes.

Tabbing through screen objects

Using a keyboard to tab through and activate screen objects is not supported, due to how project screens and screen groups are composed and displayed in Mobile Access. In most cases, it is better to click or tap on a screen object in order to activate it.

Embedded bitmaps

Embedded bitmaps are not supported in project screens on Mobile Access. If you paste bitmaps into your screens, make sure that they are saved in separate files. For more information, see Paste a bitmap image into a screen.

Image formats

Support for certain image formats varies from browser to browser. If you use an unsupported image in your project screen, the browser will not be able to render that image when you view the screen in the Mobile Access web interface. For the best performance across all browsers, try to use "web-compatible" image formats such as GIF, JPG, and PNG wherever possible.

Background color fill effects

Background color fill effects are not supported in project screens in the Mobile Access web interface. You can select any solid color for the background, but if you use fill effects to create a color gradient, only the gradient's "start" color will be displayed. If the screen's background must be a color gradient, create it as a background image instead. For more information, see Modifying a screen's background color or image.

Additional options for Driver and OPC communication

Some additional options for Driver and OPC communication are not supported in Mobile Access. First, in the project settings, the Send last state option is not supported. Mobile Access automatically uses the Send every state option, with a fixed buffer size of 5. For more information, see Communication tab.

Second, in all Driver and OPC client worksheets, the Scan field in the worksheet body is not supported. More specifically, while the field can normally be set to either Screen (scan the tag only while a screen that uses the tag is open) or Always (always scan the tag while the worksheet is enabled), the Screen option cannot be supported due to how project screens are presented by the Mobile Access web interface. All tags in all Driver and OPC client worksheets should have the Always option selected. As an alternative, you can configure a worksheet's Disable setting to disable the entire worksheet unless a screen is open.

Compressing files for faster downloads

In projects that are accessed by our traditional Thin Client software, you can choose to compress the screen files to make them faster to download over slow connections. (The Enable File Compression option is located on the Web tab of the project settings.) This feature is not supported in Mobile Access. If you try to view a project screen that has been compressed like this, the screen might behave unexpectedly and you might see messages in the activity log that say tags or objects do not exist.

AVEVA Historian

Data cannot be retrieved from AVEVA Historian. If you have a Trend worksheet configured to send tag values (historical data) to AVEVA Historian and you use these tags in a Trend Control object, the Trend Control object will be able to show only online data (values generated after opening the screen that contains the Trend Control object).

If your project requires a feature that is currently not supported in Mobile Access, consider using our traditional Thin Client software instead. For more information, see Secure Viewer and Web Thin Clients.

More features will be supported in future releases of this software.