BasicPI

I am getting closer to finishing a Beta version of BSA as a pure Modeling tool. It helped a lot starting to use BSA on a PLC project and the visual dictionary UI is a step in the correct direction. What you see below is one of my remaining bugs. I removed connection points after some testing, but the lines below is still computed as if CP’s are precent. I Only need to click on Actuator and move it forth and back and lines are corrected, but it is a very annoying error. As I save the diagram and re-load it the error is fixed so it is only minor.

Dictionary organized to show main diagram content is a step in the correct path. Switching to the alpabetic content list (below) you can see the example BSASymbol – I now get BSASymbol + a clear indication of precentations of BSASymbol. All in all th dictionary starts to function as a navigator, but it still lack some critical functionality like the capability to drag existing objects into a diagram.

My first objective was to release a UML Class modeling version, but state diagrams and PLD is also included now. What I do lack is a UI to import/export between precentation classes and the original entry, but having the freedom to draw as you pleace is important.

The weakest part of this release is PLD that will need a bit of work before it is fully functional, but as is it is great as an addition to a UML State diagram. I don’t think PLD will be completed before I start generating code. It is a matter of actually coding with PLD on real examples and see what is missing. I am working on a PnP robot and need to modify the existing firmware (C/C++) so it could be fun to test that up against BSA. It is specially the G-Code engine that I need to work on. I think a few projects that drive the last bit of development will be needed because it is not possible to see what is missing otherwise.

But, lets focus on dictionary and integration between diagrams first – PLD modeling and Code Generation is next.

The Dictionary part of BSA is quite important as your project grows because it is instrumental in keeping overview and re-using components. The content is always the same, but I decided that I needed at least two precentations of the Dictionary content that is selectable by buttons on top of the Dictionary folder itself. You see examples below and this is not written in stone. The first organize content by diagrams, the second list content by category. The actual project below is just a mock-up used for integrity testing.

Names and terminology will need to be consolidated + some more testing and this Beta is ready to go.

BSA contains a build-in component “Communication Link” and I wanted to see how it would be to code this manually in BSA. As you code you can chose to code modules in target language , or you can code components in BSA itself as we do in this example. See discussion below the diagram.

In this case we assume that the host platform have an object “Serial” with Open and Close functions as well as an event “Serial.Error”.

Open is straight forward as we open the serial line and exit with OnOpen or OnClose. Same with Close we exit with OnClose.

The more interesting part is the event “Serial.Error” where we call Close, wait 500ms and call Open three times before we give up. This is designet to keep a serial line open. Open is the same diagram as we have on left, but we override OnOpen and OnError in the “Serial.Error” diagram – if we get OnOpen we forward it, if we get OnError we loop and try x times before we give up.

This should work just fine, I will not advocate that everything should be coded in BSA as that is an user choice, Myself I will code large libraries in C++ and C# and glue them together in BSA. To make this a library you just select the diagram in the dictionary and tag it as library with a version number or you can just re-use it directly from Dictionary by dragging it into the diagram. It is guaranteed to be details and changes on this bit as we go into code generation later.

The same diagram through the clipboard – I thing “someone” has forgotten to convert colors for a component 🙂

I am using BSA myself daily as we speak and this sometimes makes it very obvious that some of the functionality needs to be improved. I was initially very happy with my Property Editor (at right), but as I have worked on large 4K screens I have noticed that text gets very small and hidden far out on the right side as I write text. As I in this example write a small block of PScript I alsi notice that the editor is rather limited to work with.

The small function above receive one of two signals and make a calculation that either raise an Alarm or a new signal. This is perfect for the Assign statement to add a few lines of code directly – and yes it works. But as I write these few lines I also notice that the small text editor in the Property Editor is not very well suited for this. I will put this on the list, but it will have to stay as is for the first Beta elease.