Algorius Net Viewer Manual | Device Collections
Devices Panel
The device collection is displayed in the Devices panel in the sidebar to the right of the map editor. Using the device collection, you can add devices to the map.
The Devices panel may be hidden. To display the panel, select Tools→Devices from the menu, or click Devices button on the toolbar, or press Ctrl+D.
The toolbar and context menu of the device collection contains the following items:
- Select Devices — select devices of the specified type on the current map.
- Double-Click Action — assign a double-click action for devices of the chosen type.
- Open Containing Folder — open the device collection directory in Explorer.
- Configure — configure the device collection.
Configuring
The device collection is configured separately for local maps and for each server. For locally open maps, the local device collection is available. For maps loaded from a server, a server device collection is available.
To configure the device collection, go to app or server options and select the Devices section:
The list includes devices of all types. The checkmarks make it possible to enable or disable certain types of devices. Is the box is not checked, the devices of the corresponding type will not be displayed in the device list in the main window, and you will be unable to add a device of this type to the map. This option allows to disable the unnecessary types of devices.
The Rename button allows to rename the device types. Their internal identifier is not changed in such cases, so no changes to maps are required. The devices reference the types using the identifier.
Adding
The device collection is stored in the Devices folder, in the directory containing Algorius Net Viewer.
Servers contain a separate directory for user devices. To see it, go to the Devices folder in the server data directory.
You can add devices of your chosen type into any of these directories. The app tracks the changes in the directories and loads them almost instantly. Clients receive the changes automatically upon synchronization with the server.
An example on how to add a new device type
In the Devices directory, create a new directory titled My Devices. In it, create a directory with the device name, for instance, New Device. Add two images titled ON and OFF of any file type (gif, png, jpg, svg). These are going to be the images of the device statuses ON and OFF. It is possible to not upload the OFF file, if you don't need the off status displayed.
After that, the New Device shall appear in the device list under My Devices category and will be available for adding to maps.
If the device didn't appear in the desired category, check if there is a device with that name in another category.
To override images of a supplied device, add another device with the same name and different images.
The My Devices directory can be archived into a .zip file, the same way it is done with the device collections.
You can compress My devices folder and use a link to zip file. Please use the content of devices.zip file in the installation folder as an example.
You can find device images in the Web, draw them yourself or export from other applications, e.g. Visio (just save a document with required device in PNG file — Portable Network Graphics).
For raster images it is recommended to upload them in PNG format, since it supports the whole color palette, translucence, saves images without quality losses and saves the disk space.
For vector images it is used SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) format — is an open standard that is recommended by the W3C - the organization that developed such standards as HTML and XHTML. There are plenty of choices of SVG editors, but we recommend the Inkscape as one of the best free open solutions.
The Algorius Net Viewer supports the SVG image format with some unimportant limitations, which are likely to be removed in future versions. All existing limitations are imposed to support the highest software performance or due to lack of some necessary OS functionality. In particular, the limitations are imposed on radial gradients (we recommend using linear gradients), blur effects (rarely used), animation. Please, contact us if your image is displayed incorrectly, we will do our best to resolve your issue.