WEBfactory 2010

Open Visual Studio and create a new empty project by choosing File > New Project... from the main menu or by pressing SHIFT+CTRL+N.

New Project dialog

Select Windows Forms Application as the project type and name it SampleConnector1.

Since we are going to use the WEBfactory 2010 Server SDK, we need define a reference to the library. Inside Solution Explorer, select References and open the contextual menu with a right mouse click.

Add Reference

Choose Add Reference... and a Windows File Open Dialog appears. Please choose ServerSDK.dll file from the lib folder of the WEBfactory 2010 Server SDK installation folder or from the WEBfactory 2010 installation disk (SDKs\WEBfactory 2010 Server SDK).

After it successfully added the reference, the Solution Explorer should look like this:

View References

After we added the reference to WEBfactory 2010 Server SDK, we need to include two files that are external dependencies of the WEBfactory 2010 Server SDK: hasp_com_windows.dll and hasp_windows_demo.dll. Select the project inside the Solution Explorer and open contextual menu with a right mouse click.

Add existing item

A Windows File Open Dialog appears. Please choose the hasp_com_windows.dll and hasp_windows_demo.dll files from the lib folder of the WEBfactory 2010 Server SDK installation folder or from the WEBfactory 2010 installation disk (SDKs\WEBfactory 2010 Server SDK).

Choose files

These files will be added to the Solution Explorer afterward. Please select both files and select Copy if newer at the Copy to Output Directory from the Properties window.

Select "Copy if newer"

This makes sure that both files are copied to the output directory after a build operation.

In Solution Explorer, right click SampleConnector1 project and choose Add > New Item. Select the Application Configuration File from the Visual C# Items and name it App.config. Click Add to complete the action.

Add an "Application Configuration File"

Open the File App.config from Solution Explorer with a double click. Change its contents to:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
	<startup useLegacyV2RuntimeActivationPolicy="true">
		<supportedRuntime version="v4.0"/>
	</startup>
</configuration>

Open the code view of Form1.cs. This can be done by pressing F7 or selecting View > Code from the main menu.

First add a using statement to the file in order to access the SDK within the file:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Linq;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using ServerSDK.Connectors.ServerConnector;
using ServerSDK.Helper;

Add an instance to Form1 class:

namespace SampleConnector1
{
	public partial class Form1 : Form
	{
		WFServerConnector wfsc;
		public Form1()
		{
			InitializeComponent();
		}
	}
}

Now we can create this instance inside the constructor of Form1:

public partial class Form1 : Form
{
	WFServerConnector wfsc;
	public Form1()
	{
		InitializeComponent();
		wfsc = new WFServerConnector("SampleConnector1");
	}
}

In our sample, the name of the Custom Connector is the same like the name of our Windows Application.

Handle the WriteAsyncRequest event;

Call the WriteAsyncRequestResult method to set the result of the write access.

In the Solution Explorer, right-click on the Form1.cs and select Properties to open the properties panel.

Double click the Form1.cs in the Solution Explorer to open the Form1.cs in design mode (Form1.cs [Design]). Click on the Form1 to select it.

Go to the Properties panel and select the Events () icon.

Locate the FormClosing event and double-click it to create the event handler for the FormClosing event.

Inside the Form1.cs code view, the event handler for FormClosing is automatically added.

        private void Form1_FormClosing(object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e)
        {

        }

Next, we need to call the ReleaseSignal method of the WFServerConnector to release the signal when the Form1 is closed.

        private void Form1_FormClosing(object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e)
        {
            int result;
            int returnValue = wfsc.ReleaseSignal("IOBuffer1", out result);
        }

We will also check if the method returns an error and display it, like we did for CreateSignal() and UpdateSignal() methods.

        private void Form1_FormClosing(object sender, FormClosingEventArgs e)
        {
            int result;
            int returnValue = wfsc.ReleaseSignal("IOBuffer1", out result);
            if (returnValue != 0)
            {
                MessageBox.Show("ReleaseSignal returned: " + WFErrorCodes.ToErrorString(returnValue));
                return;
            }
        }

Open Studio, input the User ID and Password for your Database server and select [new database] from the Database drop-down menu.

WEBfactory 2010Studio startup

A new dialog will appear.

Create new Database

Type in a Database name and click New. WEBfactory 2010Studio will generate an empty database. Please log in to the new database.

Add a new server and set its name to . (dot, representing the local machine).

Create new server

Now we can add our custom connector with a right mouse button click on the server.

Add a custom connector

Name it WEBfactory 2010.Generic.Connector.SampleConnector1.

Define the name of the connector

Add a signal group and define its Read Write Mode property to Write, Read (unsecure).

Add a signal to that group and name its OPC item and its Alias name IOBuffer1.

Open WEBfactory 2010Test Center and select Communication > Manage servers.

Accessing Manage servers

Open the context menu on the second entry and select New.

Manage servers

A new entry inside the tree view will appear. This entry's name will be the computer name or localhost. The Server ID should be the name of the server in WEBfactory 2010Studio (the .). Press Apply and then Close. In the main window of the Test Center, click on Browse Server. The Server Chooser dialog will appear.

Choose server

Select your server and click OK. The next dialog is a typical Signal Browser dialog. In this sample we only have one signal inside.

Signal Browser

Select IOBuffer1 and click Import. Close the dialog. The IOBuffer1 signal will be visible in Test Center. The value of the signal will be 7, as programmed in the Building a Custom Connector tutorial.

Try to write values other than 11 and current value will change. If we try to write 11, then an error occurs. This error is displayed inside status bar of WEBfactory 2010Test Center.

Write Access

In the SampleConnector1 solution, open the Form1.cs in code view (F7).

Locate the implementation of the wfsc_WriteAsyncRequest() method, as in its implementation, this method calls the UpdateSignal() method that we're interested in for our demonstration.

        void wfsc_WriteAsyncRequest(string[] signalNames, object[] signalValues, string asyncID)
        {
            if (InvokeRequired)
            {
                Invoke(new WFWriteAsyncRequestEventHandler(wfsc_WriteAsyncRequest), new object[] { signalNames, signalValues, asyncID });
            }
            else
            {      
                int[] results = new int[1]{0};
                if (signalValues[0].ToString() == "11")
	            {
		            results[0] = -10000;
	            }
                else
                {
                    int updateResult;
                    wfsc.UpdateSignal("IOBuffer1", signalValues[0], out updateResult);
                    
                }
                wfsc.WriteAsyncRequestResult(asyncID, results);
            }
        }

Notice that the UpdateSignal() method outputs a parameter named updateResult. This parameter is 0 when the UpdateSignal() method is successful. Knowing this, we can check if the method has successfully updated the signal value or not, and use the WriteTrace() method to notify the user in both cases. First we'll check if the updateResult is different than 0 and call the WriteTrace() method to notify the user that something is wrong. We will set the trace level to Error and an appropriate custom message.

        void wfsc_WriteAsyncRequest(string[] signalNames, object[] signalValues, string asyncID)
        {
            if (InvokeRequired)
            {
                Invoke(new WFWriteAsyncRequestEventHandler(wfsc_WriteAsyncRequest), new object[] { signalNames, signalValues, asyncID });
            }
            else
            {
                /* This code checks whether the input is 11. In case of eleven it does not allow the write operation. 
                 * This is done by setting any other value than 0 as result to WriteAsynchRequestResult. 
                 * If the value is not 11 then the result is 0 [write access allowed] and the new value is updated with UpdateSignal method. */
                int[] results = new int[1]{0};
                if (signalValues[0].ToString() == "11")
	            {
		            results[0] = -10000;
	            }
                else
                {
                    int updateResult;
                    wfsc.UpdateSignal("IOBuffer1", signalValues[0], out updateResult);
                    if (updateResult != 0)
                    {
                        wfsc.WriteTrace(ServerSDK.Helper.WFTraceLevels.TraceError, "An error has occurred while updating the signal value!");
                    }
                }
                wfsc.WriteAsyncRequestResult(asyncID, results);
            }
        }

Next, we need to handle the situation when updateResult is 0. This time, we will set the trace level to Info and the appropriate custom message:

        void wfsc_WriteAsyncRequest(string[] signalNames, object[] signalValues, string asyncID)
        {
            if (InvokeRequired)
            {
                Invoke(new WFWriteAsyncRequestEventHandler(wfsc_WriteAsyncRequest), new object[] { signalNames, signalValues, asyncID });
            }
            else
            {
                /* This code checks whether the input is 11. In case of eleven it does not allow the write operation. 
                 * This is done by setting any other value than 0 as result to WriteAsynchRequestResult. 
                 * If the value is not 11 then the result is 0 [write access allowed] and the new value is updated with UpdateSignal method. */
                int[] results = new int[1]{0};
                if (signalValues[0].ToString() == "11")
	            {
		            results[0] = -10000;
	            }
                else
                {
                    int updateResult;
                    wfsc.UpdateSignal("IOBuffer1", signalValues[0], out updateResult);
                    if (updateResult != 0)
                    {
                        wfsc.WriteTrace(ServerSDK.Helper.WFTraceLevels.TraceError, "An error has occurred while updating the signal value!");
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        wfsc.WriteTrace(ServerSDK.Helper.WFTraceLevels.TraceInfo, "The signal value has been successfully updated!");
                    }
                }
                wfsc.WriteAsyncRequestResult(asyncID, results);
            }
        }

Open WEBfactory 2010Activity Analyzer and click on the Filter button.

In the Filter settings windows, go to Advanced filter section and add a new custom filter using the filter button .

Next we need to set the Channel ID. In our case, the channel ID will be WEBfactory.Generic.Connector.SampleConnector1*.

The next step is to configure the Message level for our new channel. Click in the Message channel field and open the Message levels dialog by clicking the more button.

In the Message levels dialog, select the levels want to display in Activity Analyzer. Considering that in our WriteTrace() implementation, we have used both Error and Info levels, we must select at least these two levels in order to see the messages. Click OK to confirm.

The Activity Analyzer Filter settings are now complete, so close the Filter settings window by pressing OK.

Now we can test our implementation of trace messages. Make sure you have the WEBfactory 2010 Server running and a working database loaded in Studio. Run the SampleConnector1.

In Test Center, add our IOBuffer1 signal and write a value different from 11. The Activity Analyzer will display the Info message for a successful signal update.