Reach Editor Guide

Bring your Reach ROI project ideas to life using the Reach Editor. Utilize labels, switches, buttons, and indicators to develop powerful interactive screens that enable monitoring and control of PLCs and RTUs by utilizing an iOS® tablet device. Link multiple screens to produce rich controller interfaces. Projects support a mixture of read-only and read/write operator roles. Restrict access to a single control or entire screens.

To create a new project, simply press the "New Project" button under the "File" menu. This will open a new window that will allow you to set up your new project.

This is the "New Project" window. It will allow you to establish the settings for your new project. All of these settings can be changed later. They are not locked in.

First, the "Target Device" setting will allow you to select the device that will be used most often to access the project. This simply sets a default resolution for the screen. If the project is viewed on a different device, the screen will simply be scaled to the new device. Aspect ratios will never be altered.

Next, the "Target Protocol" setting allows you to choose what protocol the Reach will be using. The current options are: ROC, FloBoss, and Modbus. This will dictate how addresses are treated within the program, and will add additional features if needed.

Finally, two inputs for width and height are provided. These values are in pixels and should be set automatically by the "Target Device" dropdown. If you wish to use Reach with a device not listed in the "Target Device" dropdown, you can enter its width and height here to create a project for it.

An example of these additional features is the "Modbus Settings" window. This allows users to set information important for Modbus projects. Simply select the correct values for your project and press "OK" when you are done.

If you choose a protocol other than Modbus, you will not see this menu.

"New Project" - Make a new project.

"Open" - Open an existing project.

"Save" - Save a previously saved project over itself, otherwise works like "Save As".

"Save As" - Saves the project as a new file.

"Exit" - Quit the program without saving.

"Undo" - Undo the last action.

"Redo" - Redo the last undo action.

"Cut" - Cut the currently selected controls.

"Copy" - Copy the currently selected controls.

"Paste" - Paste the currently selected controls.

"Delete" - Delete the currently selected controls.

"Send Screen to First" - Moves the current screen the first position in the project.

"Send Screen to Last" - Moves the current screen to the last position in the project.

"Send Screen Forward One" - Moves the current screen forward one position. For example, the third screen will be moved to the second screen position, and the second screen will be moved back to the third screen position.

"Send Screen Backward One" - Moves the current screen backward one position. For example, the second screen will be moved to the third screen position, and the third screen will be moved forward to the second screen position.

"Change Screen Settings" - Change the size of the screen and change which protocol is being used. Be warned, changing the protocol will not re-validate every address in the project. Using incorrect addresses can cause unintended results.

"Change Modbus Settings" - Change the settings for a Modbus project.

"Options" - Opens the Options window. View the following image for more information.

"Add Password" - Opens the Add Password window. View the following image for more information.

"Get a Project Summary" - Opens the Project Summary window. This allows you to view a text-based summary of your project. This summary can be used to quickly and easily find data or issues is your projects without having to dig through multiple menus.

Allows the user to select the path to an address editor file. This file allows you to visually select addresses from a list, simplifying the address selection process.

Adding a password to your project means that the same password will have to be entered by others. Once a password is added, it cannot be removed, only changed. This password has no bearing on who can load or even see the project using the Reach Loader or Reach Nomad. This password only protects editing the project.

When opening a password protected project, this is the prompt that users will face before opening the project. Simply entering the correct password will allow the project to be edited. When saved, the project will save with the same password.

The help menu provides links to important data, as well as informative information on how to use this program.

When you are finished setting up your new project, you will be ready to make a screen. First, let's cover some basic controls.

The icons below the menu bar offer you a variety of controls to add to your screens. From the left, the first control allows you to add new screens to your project. These new screens will be added to the end of the project, but their location can be changed using the "Screens" menu item. The following controls allow you to add controls to your screen. The included controls are: Buttons, Frames, Labels, Graphs (Currently Unavailable), Text Boxes, Toggles, Three State Toggles, Indicator Lights, and Time labels. Controls can be added to the screen in multiple ways. By clicking on the control, it will be added in the upper left hand corner. Then, by selecting the control, you can move it around the screen. Alternately, you can drag from the button onto the screen to place a control at a specific location.

The next two items with the red lines through them are deletion items. The first one will allow you to delete a whole screen from the project. This will shift all following screens forward to fill its place. Be careful though, this can change what pages buttons are linked to. Always be wary of a deletion. The next item allows you to delete a control or selection of controls from a screen. Simply highlight the control you want to delete and press this button. Alternately, the delete key will also remove the selected control from the screen. Remember, if you accidentally delete a control, you can use the next button to fix it.

First, the undo button allows you to undo your most recent action, while the following redo button will allow you to reinstate any action you have undone. The undo redo queue is reset every time you change from screen to screen, so make sure that you are absolutely certain you will not need to undo anything when you change screens.

To change screens, simply press the next buttons. The left arrow will go back to the previous screen, while the right arrow will move to the next screen

Finally, the last control allows you to adjust the zoom of the screen you are working on. This can also be changed by adjusting the scroll wheel on your mouse while over the screen you are editing.

When a control is added to the screen and selected, the properties menu is populated. These settings vary by control, but the default settings are: Visibility, Event Actions, X, Y, Z, Width and Height.

At the top of the properties section is a search box. Simply type in the property you are looking for, and only matching properties will be shown.

The visibility section is broken up into a set of four checkboxes. These refer to the visibility of controls based on a login password. When a user connects to Reach from the Reach Nomad application, the user will be prompted to enter a password. There are up to four potential passwords: Two read only passwords, and two read/write passwords. Each checkbox refers to one of these passwords. By default, all controls are visible to all passwords. Here's an example of how this might be used. If you wished to have a control that was only visible to those with write privileges, you could uncheck the two "Read Password" entries. The control would then only be visible if the user logged in using a read/write password.

The "Open Event Editor" button allows you to edit events the control may receive. This is covered later in FC.

X and Y refer to the control's X and Y co-ordinates on the screen. A control cannot go off the screen, so these numbers are clamped to valid values.

The Z co-ordinate refers to the height of the control in the visibility stack. A control with a lower number will appear to be below a control with a higher number. Most controls start with a Z index of 0. This means that the most recently created control will appear on top of the others. Frames have a default Z index of -1.

Width and height change the size of the control. For some controls, such as the button, the control is always square. This means that changing the width will also change the height. Don't forget to take this into account when editing these values.

Controls with text add a few new items to the properties window: Alignment, Multiline, Text, and Font Size.

Alignment will align the text within the control to either the left side, the right side, or centered.

Multiline is either true or false. If true, the control is multiline capable. If not, overflowing text will be cut off.

Text is the text content of the control.

Font size controls the size of the font when the control is displayed.

This is the Event Editor. This allows you to set advanced connections based on events that occur due to user interaction or changes in data values. There are many different connections you can make in the Event Editor. The basic connection is a conditional, this will be covered in the following image.

This is a conditional. A conditional allows the control to perform certain operations based on data the Reach receives from the PLC. Conditionals are formulated as logical if this, then that statements. First, the value is retrieved for the specified address, then it is compared to a set value. The comparison can be any one of the standard comparisons: Equal, Not Equal, Less Than, Less Than or Equal To, Greater Than, or Greater Than or Equal To.

If that statement evaluates to true, then the following line will be executed. First the user must specify which control property to edit. You may edit any property of the control, be it text content, position, color, font size, etc. Then the user must select what value the property will evaluate to. Changing the property to edit will also change the layout of the property value selection to best accommodate. For example, Alignment properties are chosen from a dropdown box, while X and Y values are simple text entries.

While the statement continues to be true, the changes will continue to be made. But when the statement no longer evaluates to true, the control will return the property to its original value.

If a control has multiple conditionals, then the conditionals are evaluated from top to bottom. The last conditional to evaluate true will take precedence over any previous conditional that evaluated to true.

For example, say this control originally has its text set to the color green. As you can see, the top conditional sets the color to orange, but the second conditional sets the color to red. Now, if both of those conditionals evaluate to true, then the color will be red. However, if the first conditional is true but not the second, the color will be orange. If neither of the conditionals are true, the color be set back to the original value, green.

To delete any object from the Event Editor, simply check the checkbox, and then press the "Delete Selected" button. It will remove all selected objects from the editor.

Before closing out of the Event Editor, make sure to save by pressing the "Save All" button. This will cause the Event Editor to check all entries, and then save them if they are valid. In this example, the first entry is valid, so it is signified as saved by the green outline. However the second entry was not valid. This is denoted by the red outline on the offending entry. Clicking back in the entry will provide a popup on tips for how to best fix the problem with the entry.

Controls with text will receive an additional option in the Event Editor. Here, the text content of a control can be set to display the value stored on a PLC at a specific address. If the value is a number, it can be scaled by a multiplication factor as well. For text controls, scale should be left at 1.

Button controls get two different options.

The first is "Change Screen on Click." This event causes the screen to change when the button is pressed. In order to best select the target screen, a visual selector opens to choose the right screen. This is covered in the next image.

Visual representations of each screen are given in order to best choose the right screen. Simply switch from screen to screen using the arrow keys and then press "Confirm" when you are on the correct screen.

When a screen change is added, it will look like this. In order to change it, simply press the "Edit" button to open the visual selector again and override the old value.

The second new option for buttons is "Add New Click Value." This option allows you to send certain values to the PLC at set addresses whenever a button is pressed.

Toggle controls set certain values when they are set to new positions. You can add a binding for this by selecting "Add New Toggle Value." Values are denoted by their position. If it a two state toggle, you have a left position value and a right position value. But in a three state toggle, there is also a middle position state. All three values are sent to the same address.

Address Browser

Throughout the program, you will often see a button whose content is three dots, "...." This button opens the "Address Browser." By selecting a source file, a user can visually select addresses from a file. This gives greater control to a user to easily find the right address.

To learn more about the layout of the files used in the "Address Browser," check the "Building Address Editor Files" section of the Reach Editor User Manual found on both the Download and Learn pages.