Reusable graphical elements with quickly editable features for use in user displays of plant monitoring systems

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9762659-B2
Application number	US-201414581601-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Dec 23, 2014
Priority date	Jan 3, 2014
Publication date	Sep 12, 2017
Grant date	Sep 12, 2017

Abstract

A display configuration system enables a graphical designer to create reusable template graphical display elements that can be easily modified by, for example, other graphical designers with less experience in graphical design programming, such that the modified graphical display elements can reflect one of various different possible functionalities of plant equipment or plant usages to which the modified graphical display element is to be tied during operation. The display configuration system includes a graphical design application that enables the creation of generic or library graphical elements that include basic graphical functionality associated with particular types of plant equipment or associated with particular types of graphic display functionality and includes a configuration form editor that enables a user to create quick configuration forms that define predetermined potential modifications to be made to the template graphical element when creating a usage from the template graphical element.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. A user display configuration system, comprising:
a graphical element configuration application, stored on a tangible computer readable medium, that executes using one or more computer processors to enable a user to create one or more template graphical elements, each template graphical element including displayable indicia and configurable links to process control system data to be displayed on a display device using the displayable indicia;
a configuration form editor, stored on a tangible computer-readable medium that executes using one or more computer processors to enable a user to create a configuration form associated with one of the template graphical elements, the configuration form being used to configure the operation of one or more graphical element usages from the one of the template graphical elements, wherein the configuration form editor presents a user display interface to enable a user to specify one or more actionable items for the configuration form, wherein the one or more actionable items are each adapted to be used to configure the one or more graphical element usages created from the one of the template graphical elements, each actionable item including an indication of a graphical element parameter of the template graphical element and a property of the graphical element parameter of the template graphical element to be configured, and one or more editable configuration cells for specifying configuration information for the property of the graphical element parameter; and
a configuration form application, stored on a tangible computer-readable medium that executes using one or more computer processors to use the configuration form for the one of the template graphical elements to present visual information to a second user via a user display device, wherein the configuration form application operates to enable the second user to specify the configuration information for one of the one or more editable configuration cells of the one or more actionable items and uses the specified configuration information to create a graphical element usage from the one of the template graphical elements for execution as part of a user display.

2. The user display configuration system of claim 1 , wherein the configuration form editor enables the user to create an actionable item including an indication of a data entry type to be used for collecting configuration information for the actionable item.

3. The user display configuration system of claim 2 , wherein the configuration form editor enables the user to specify one or more rules to be associated with the actionable item.

4. The user display configuration system of claim 3 , wherein the one or more rules associated with the actionable item are configured to be implemented by a processor upon use of the configuration form by the configuration form application in creating a graphical element usage.

5. The user display configuration system of claim 3 , wherein the one or more rules associated with the actionable item are configured to be implemented by a processor upon execution of the graphical element usage created by the configuration form application.

6. The user display configuration system of claim 3 , wherein the configuration form editor enables the user to specify one or more rules to be associated with the actionable item by changing rule information associated with a template rule set.

7. The user display configuration system of claim 6 , wherein the configuration form editor stores a different template rule set for each of a plurality of different data entry types.

8. The user display configuration system of claim 1 , wherein the configuration form editor enables the user to specify, in one of the one or more configuration fields of an actionable item, an indication of a label to be provided to the second user when the second user is providing the configuration information via the actionable item.

9. The user display configuration system of claim 1 , wherein the configuration form editor enables the user to specify, in one of the one or more configuration fields of an actionable item, an indication of a message to be provided to the second user when the second user is providing configuration information via the actionable item.

10. The user display configuration system of claim 1 , wherein the configuration form editor enables the user to create an actionable item including a default value for the property of the graphic element parameter to used by the second user when the second user is providing the configuration information for the actionable item.

11. The user display configuration system of claim 1 , wherein the configuration form editor enables the user to create an actionable item related to buttons to be displayed to a user when the graphical element usage created from the template graphical element is used in a user display.

12. The user display configuration system of claim 11 , wherein the configuration form editor enables the user to create an actionable item including rules to be implemented in response to a button of the graphical element usage being manipulated in a user display.

13. The user display configuration system of claim 1 , wherein the configuration form editor presents, on a user interface device, a first field including an indication of graphical element parameters for which an actionable item can be created, a second field including an indication of one or more properties of a selected graphical element parameter in the first field for which an actionable item can be created, and a third field including an indication of actionable items within the configuration form.

14. The user display configuration system of claim 13 , wherein the configuration form editor executes to enable a user to select a graphical element parameter indicated in the first field and to select a property of the selected graphical element parameter indicated in the second field to produce an actionable item associated with the selected property of the selected graphical element parameter.

15. The user display configuration system of claim 1 , wherein the indication of the graphical element parameter for one of the actionable items relates to a graphical depiction to be presented on a user display screen and the property of the graphical element parameter relates to the visual property of the graphical depiction.

16. The user display configuration system of claim 1 , wherein the graphical element parameter for the one of the actionable items is an alias for a graphical element as defined in the namespace used by the graphical element configuration application.

17. The user display configuration system of claim 1 , wherein the indication of the graphical element parameter for one of the actionable items relates to a graphical container to be presented on a user display screen and the property of the graphical element parameter relates to a data path for data to displayed using the graphical container.

18. The user display configuration system of claim 1 , wherein one of the one or more editable configuration cells for specifying configuration information for the property of the graphical element parameter is adapted to store a reference to a configuration cell in an actionable item of a second configuration form.

19. A display element configuration system, comprising:
a graphical element configuration application, stored on a tangible computer readable medium, that executes using one or more computer processors to create one or more template graphical elements,

Assignees

• Fisher Rosemount Systems Inc

Inventors

• Koska Herschel O
• Jundt Larry O
• Gilbert Stephen C
• Havekost Robert B
• Daly Paul K

Classifications

• G06F30/00

  Computer-aided design [CAD] · CPC title

• G06F40/174 Primary

  Form filling; Merging · CPC title

• H04L67/10 Primary

  in which an application is distributed across nodes in the network (software deployment G06F8/60; multiprogramming arrangements G06F9/46) · CPC title

• G06F3/04817

  using icons (graphical or visual programming using iconic symbols G06F8/34) · CPC title

• G05B19/414

  Structure of the control system, e.g. common controller or multiprocessor systems, interface to servo, programmable interface controller · CPC title