Enabling fetching and display of live spec values

Enabling fetching and display of live spec values

Turning on Live Specs for a Block

  • To show live specs for a block, first enable live specs by selecting Enable Live Specs from the View menu. Layered specs will be shown, and a camera icon will appear on the layered specs. You can then fetch live specs for the block of your choice.
  • To actually fetch the live specs, click on the camera icon, or right click the function block and select Show Live Specs For This Block. Live specs will be fetched and shown.
  • To refresh the live specs, click on the camera icon again.
  • To turn off the live specs, double-click on the camera icon, or right-click and select Turn Off Live Specs.
  • To disable live specs for all blocks, use the View menu.

Information-noshadow.png Note: The specs will be shown for the base block of the function block in question.

Static specs.png Live specs.png

Find out more about these annotation types.

Live Layered Specs vs Live Spec Loop Loop Annotations

Until DBDOC version 11.0, live specifications for a block could be shown as a kind of live loop annotation.

No tool live loop annotation specs.png

Starting in DBDOC 11.1, layered specs have a "live" mode, and live specification values can be seen directly on layered specs.

Static specs.png Live specs.png

This is an improvement, because live layered specs are now fetched very rarely (only upon creation, upon change of document, and on manual refresh), as opposed to periodically like a live loop annotation. Since specs very rarely change, but are quite heavyweight communication-wise to fetch, this makes sense.


Specifying Where Data is to be Fetched From

In all cases, live data is fetched from the connections (generally CIUMon) specified in the Live Loop Setup tab of the Options dialog.

See also