Knowledge Base

Summary:

Whenever you create a PcVue multi-station project, you logically want to display real-time information from all stations in a dedicated view.

For a station to be able to send information on its operating status, it must act as a server, and it is via its server connection that it delivers information to client stations.
In a standard multi-station configuration, all links between all stations are checked. So, in reality, all stations are both clients and servers. Without a firewall, everyone can see everyone else. However, good cybersecurity practice means that more and more non-essential communication ports are closed, making PcVue server-to-client connections impossible. As a result, server stations cannot know the value of system variables on client stations.
You need to be aware of this to be able to draw up a dynamic view of the network architecture. To share the system variables of a server station, simply use shared internal variables updated by expression. As client stations normally subscribe to the server, they will naturally be notified of any change in variable values. To share system variables on a client station, on the other hand, you can’t use expressions, as no station is subscribed to the client station. You need to use a cyclic action local to the client station to ask it to write to the internal variables of the active server.

This is the principle used in the library attached to this article. In just a few minutes, you can generate shared variables, expressions, cyclic actions and a synoptic containing graphic symbols to be positioned as you wish: