Algorius Net Viewer Manual | External Commands

General Information

You can add external commands to each device on the map. E.g., execute the ping.exe utility or remote desktop, etc. In addition, the device parameters (like device address) will be entered automatically. This feature turns the Algorius Net Viewer into an effective tool for managing a computer network.

Algorius Net Viewer contains large list of predefined external commands. Application makes a check at the first launch and enables only those commands which are available on a machine. You can hide, remove commands, or add a new command.

Please, contact us if you need any additional external commands to be predefined. We are interested in it, and will try to add them in the next software version (for free).

Configuring

To configure external commands, select Commands→Configure from the device context menu. The Options window will appear:

This window will allow you to add, edit, delete and group the external commands. You can also use available external commands as a basis for new one’s (external command duplicate option).

There are built-in external commands which can’t be deleted or edited. They are located in Standard group by default.

Checkbox next to external command of group of commands enables or disables its display in device context menu.

You can drag an external command or group of commands with a mouse to another group. You can remove a command from a group in the same way.

Pressing the Up (Ctrl+Up) or the Down →Ctrl+Down) buttons allows you to reorder external commands.

Clicking the Add, Duplicate or Edit button will display the External Command window:

In this window it is necessary to specify the external command name and executable file. Besides, you can optionally specify the external command attributes to be used. The macros support is also provided. Notice that all macros will be substituted with their corresponding values when executing an external command.

The following macros are allowed for attributes:

%ADDRESS%	Device address
%HOST%	Device host name
%IP%	Device IP address
%IPV4%	Device IPv4 address
%IPV6%	Device IPv6 address
%MAC%	Device MAC address
%NAME%	Device name
%DESCRIPTION%	Device description
%MAP%	Device map name (filename without extension)
%TIME%	Local time
%USER%	Current OS user login
%COMPUTER%	Local PC name
%LOGIN_USER%	User name for authorization on the device
%LOGIN_PASSWORD%	Password for authorization on the device

Enter the ‘%’ character in the command attribute editor and you will be offered a list of macros to be used. Select macros you need, by using the Up and Down arrow keys, and press Enter or double-click the mouse. The selected macros will be added to the external command attributes list. Pressing the ESC button closes the macros list.

You can also add any custom macros, e.g., %Timeout%, etc. Their values ​​will not be defined automatically, but will be requested. Moreover, if the macros name contains the word Password, its value will be requested in a hidden field. Custom macros names cannot contain spaces, so we recommend that you use underline characters instead. This limitation is provided to avoid any accidental text replacement between two '%' characters.

The %LOGIN_USER% and %LOGIN_PASSWORD% macros refer to login set for the device. Should any of these parameters be unspecified, the system will request it before executing the command.

You can also use any OS environment variables, e.g., % PATH%. These kinds of variables will also be defined automatically.

Please, contact us if you need any additional automatically defined macros to be added. We are interested in development of the Algorius Net Viewer, so will try to take into account all your requests and implement them in the next software version (for free).

You can set the shortcut key to execute any external command. This feature allows speeding up the process of external commands execution and makes it possible to run them directly from the keyboard.

Hold console feature allows preventing the unwanted closing of the console window after the external command is executed. It also allows a user to browse the console command result.

Executing

In order to execute the external command, select the necessary one in context menu of a device. The command will be inactive in case it needs a device address to be executed (%ADDRESS%, %HOST%, %IP%, %MAC% macros are used), but the address of the necessary device is not defined. This feature allows excluding the execution of external commands for such passive devices as buildings.