tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-53015758337273305122024-03-13T16:15:57.989-07:00FBDK 2Progress reports on the Function Block Development Kit from Holobloc IncJim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.comBlogger48125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-72186886644476919982020-05-26T11:28:00.000-07:002020-05-26T11:28:32.733-07:00FBDK 8.2 Release<div class="gmail_default">
<span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">T</span><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">oday's release of <a href="https://www.holobloc.com/fbdk.htm">FBDK 8.2</a> contains two new features:</span></div>
<div class="gmail_default">
<ol style="margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-top: 0px; padding-left: 1em;">
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Support for <a href="https://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk3/simpleStates.htm">Simple EC States, ECCs, and FBTypes</a>. This experimental feature, which has been proposed for inclusion in the Third Edition of IEC 61499-1, replaces the previously proposed "Transient EC States".</span></li>
<li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk3/namecomment.htm">Multi-line comments</a> to enable you to generate HTML documentation with more extensive "Hover help" in figures.</span></li>
</ol>
</div>
Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-37104860156380688362019-09-10T14:44:00.001-07:002019-09-10T14:44:11.511-07:00FBDK 8.1 Release<span style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;"><a href="https://www.holobloc.com/fbdk8/index.htm" style="border: 0px; color: #6611cc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;"><u>FBDK 8.1</u></a> is available for download or auto-update.</span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
<span style="border: 0px; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: medium; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">See the <a href="https://www.holobloc.com/fbdk8/whatsnew.htm" style="border: 0px; color: #6611cc; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;">What's New</a> page for details.</span></div>
Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-69329941130332674092019-01-03T13:51:00.000-08:002019-01-03T13:51:24.042-08:00Expanded "Hover Help"<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">The </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.holobloc.com/fbdk8/index.htm&source=gmail&ust=1546638434958000&usg=AFQjCNF5VW4wyQdDRDWy8NeFSL5iuws9zw" href="https://www.holobloc.com/fbdk8/index.htm" style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;" target="_blank">FBDK</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"> is now capable of including "Hover Help" for internal variables, LD rungs, Service sequences and primitives in generated HTML documents in addition to its previous capabilities. See the expanded examples at the </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.holobloc.com/doc/navigator.htm&source=gmail&ust=1546638434958000&usg=AFQjCNGswkIF-LQ2KcxLmU1hB7yhH3xoDg" href="https://www.holobloc.com/doc/navigator.htm" style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;" target="_blank">FBNavigator </a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">home page and the updated instructions at</span><br style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;" /><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk3/howtodoc.htm&source=gmail&ust=1546638434958000&usg=AFQjCNFJ26F3Jqf-TGY5NJ0hWMDsDR_1Gw" href="https://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk3/howtodoc.htm" style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;" target="_blank">https://www.holobloc.com/doc/<wbr></wbr>fbdk3/howtodoc.htm</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: verdana, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">.</span>Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-10130595375631250862018-12-18T18:35:00.001-08:002018-12-18T18:35:37.854-08:00FBDK 8.0 ReleaseRelease 8.0 of the FBDK/FBRT is now available at <a href="https://www.holobloc.com/fbdk8/" target="_blank">https://www.holobloc.com/fbdk8/</a> (the numbering is to emphasize that it requires JDK 8 or higher).<br />
Please be sure to read <a href="https://www.holobloc.com/fbdk8/whatsnew.htm" target="_blank">https://www.holobloc.com/fbdk8/whatsnew.htm</a> for a description of several new and useful features (and one important caveat).Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-62825535466336316522018-11-02T14:29:00.000-07:002018-11-02T14:29:22.539-07:00Network Setup for FBDK+FBRTA new set of guidelines is available for setting up network and firewall parameters for ease of launching distributed systems and remote devices with the FBDK and FBRT: <a href="https://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk3/networking.htm">https://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk3/networking.htm</a>.
Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-77267336289645492112018-08-21T12:15:00.000-07:002018-08-21T12:15:30.445-07:00FBDK 3.3 ReleaseIn addition to clickable documentation links, the <a href="https://www.holobloc.com/fbdk.htm" target="_blank">FBDK</a> now generates hoverable pop-up documentation (derived from comments in the XML document) for graphical elements in the PNG diagrams produced using the "Save as HTML" function. For a user-oriented overview, see the <a href="https://www.holobloc.com/doc/navigator.htm" target="_blank">FBNavigator </a>home page, and for instructions on producing the HTML documentation, see <a href="https://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk3/howtodoc.htm">https://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk3/howtodoc.htm</a>.<br />
<br />
If you are already using FBDK 3.2, this update will auto-load at startup; otherwise, you can follow the instructions at <a href="https://www.holobloc.com/fbdk3/index.htm">https://www.holobloc.com/fbdk3/index.htm</a>.Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-32352361050138418142018-07-15T13:43:00.000-07:002018-07-15T13:44:52.949-07:00Security Upgrade and FBDK 3.2 release<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">The </span><a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=http://holobloc.com&source=gmail&ust=1531773155568000&usg=AFQjCNH3JimrQnm3-uC-DdXC3GkA0LjTIQ" href="http://holobloc.com/" style="background-color: white; color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">holobloc.com</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222;"> website has been upgraded to use the HTTPS (secure HTTP) protocol for all served documents.</span></span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">This has required an extensive update to the FBDK to convert its use of HTTP to HTTPS for auto updates, help pages, etc.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For details, see <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.holobloc.com/security.htm&source=gmail&ust=1531773155568000&usg=AFQjCNFYfUSZ26RYJJh3XrPvxsBAXVhtug" href="https://www.holobloc.com/security.htm" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://www.holobloc.com/<wbr></wbr>security.htm</a>.</span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #222222;">
<span style="font-family: inherit;">For additional details of new features in FBDK 3.2 see <a data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?hl=en&q=https://www.holobloc.com/fbdk3/whatsnew.htm&source=gmail&ust=1531773155568000&usg=AFQjCNFGCCponr2T6naEL2QsilGYkCMC7g" href="https://www.holobloc.com/fbdk3/whatsnew.htm" style="color: #1155cc;" target="_blank">https://www.holobloc.com/<wbr></wbr>fbdk3/whatsnew.htm</a></span></div>
Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-8181873343543764102018-01-26T10:48:00.004-08:002018-08-21T10:43:12.429-07:00FBDK 3.0 Release<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; line-height: normal; padding: 0px;">
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">FBDK 3.0 is now available at <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/fbdk3/" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; color: #6611cc; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">http://www.holobloc.com/<wbr></wbr>fbdk3/</a>. New features include:</span></div>
<ol style="background-color: white;">
<li style="line-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The FBDK and FBRT now support the following experimental features:</span><ul>
<li style="line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk3/transient.htm" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; color: #6611cc; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Transient EC States</span></a></li>
<li style="line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fb/rt/mgt2/Comparison.htm" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; color: #6611cc; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Compact encoding of management commands and responses</span></a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li style="line-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Validation tools</b> are provided for <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk3/eccValidation.htm" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; color: #6611cc; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">ECCs</a> and <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk3/fbValidation.htm" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; color: #6611cc; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration-line: none;" target="_blank">FB Types</a> to guide development and prevent compilation of incorrect or incomplete elements.</span></li>
<li style="line-height: 17px;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The <b>progress bar</b> has been relocated to the upper right corner of the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk3/libnav.htm" rel="nofollow" style="border: 0px; color: #6611cc; cursor: pointer; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;" target="_blank">Library Navigator</a> and its operation has been properly synchronized to the running background process.</span></li>
</ol>
<ol>
</ol>
Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-84019535291435316482017-04-08T08:41:00.000-07:002017-04-08T08:41:11.735-07:00FBDK 2.6 Version 20170408<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">If you have used the FBDK recently, you may have noticed an unannounced auto-upgrade to Release 2.6 version 20170314. Further testing revealed a few glitches, which have now been fixed. Changes from the 2.5 release include:
</span><br />
<br />
<ol>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Look and Feel (LAF) has been set to the Java "Metal" default, to ensure uniform window appearance and sizing across platforms.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">An experimental, more efficient encoding of device management commands and responses is available by specifying the </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">fbmgt2</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> protocol in the </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">MGR_ID</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> parameter of the remote device. See the </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">mgt2</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> and </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">mach</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> folders of the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/navigator.htm" target="_blank">FBNavigator</a> for details and examples.</span></li>
<li><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">System</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> and </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">Device</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> launchers have been re-implemented to support multiple management protocols. In particular, the </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">System</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> launcher now starts each device as soon as it is created and initialized, instead of waiting to launch the devices in reverse order. This mainly affects the delays required to start simulation and diagnostic clocks in the system configurations of the </span><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">mach</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"> folder. </span></li>
</ol>
<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">Documentation in the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/navigator.htm" target="_blank">FBNavigator</a> is being updated to reflect these changes; updating should be complete in a week or so.</span>Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-47145282989271479702016-11-30T18:51:00.003-08:002016-11-30T18:53:41.534-08:00E_CYCLE Test StatisticsHere are some E_CYCLE performance statistics collected on various platforms using JUnit 3. For more details see <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fb/rt/events/E_CYCLETest.htm">www.holobloc.com/doc/fb/rt/events/E_CYCLETest.htm</a>.
<iframe height="425" src="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1V9Z8NtxvR8iMp3yk7bIDkHK1wBnxjgDowdvkRFZWgyI/pubhtml?widget=true&headers=false" width="550"></iframe>Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-68065741213158646532016-11-05T17:58:00.003-07:002016-11-05T18:08:08.489-07:00Dynamic Updating of E_CYCLE periodThere has been some discussion within the IEC 61499 Maintenance Team of the appropriate behavior of <code>E_CYCLE</code> blocks when doing programmatic updates of the cycle period (<code>DT</code> input) while the block is running. The <code><a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fb/rt/events/E_CYCLE.htm" target="_blank">events/E_CYCLE</a></code> documentation on the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/navigator.htm" target="_blank">FBNavigator</a> site explains how this is done in the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/fbdk2/index.htm" target="_blank">FBDK</a>, and a new <code><a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fb/rt/test/E_CYCLE_DEMO.htm" target="_blank">test/E_CYCLE_DEMO</a></code> system configuration is included in today's FBDK self-update with documentation on the FBNavigator site showing you how to use an <code>E_DELAY</code> block to obtain the correct <code>STOP/START</code> event sequencing for this purpose.
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" src="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fb/rt/test/images/E_CYCLE_DEMO.E_CYCLE_DEMO.png" /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<img border="0" src="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fb/rt/test/images/E_CYCLE_DEMO.TESTBED.HMI.png" /></div>
Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-57792345809335754022016-09-17T17:37:00.003-07:002016-09-17T17:41:34.375-07:00Mapping UpdateThe <b>Mapping</b> dialog and associated documentation have been updated.<br />
For details see <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk2/maphelp.htm" target="_blank">http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk2/maphelp.htm</a>.<br />
This information is also linked to the "Mapping" section of the<a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk2/howtosys.htm" target="_blank"> System help</a>.<br />
<br />Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-32049102429152916002016-09-05T14:18:00.002-07:002016-09-05T14:18:45.951-07:00STRING FunctionsToday's <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/fbdk2/index.htm" target="_blank">FBDK2</a> auto-update contains IEC 61499 "Simple (<code>REQ/CNF</code>) FB" implementations of all the standard character string functions defined in IEC 61499, including implementations for both <code>WSTRING</code> (16-bit character strings) and <code>STRING</code> (8-bit character strings) types. <code>WSTRING</code> is implemented as a container for the Java <code>String</code> class, whose instances are immutable, and <code>STRING</code> is implemented as a wrapper for a mutable array of bytes. This gives the latter the following practical advantages:
<br />
<ul>
<li>Significantly less object creation and garbage collection overhead</li>
<li>Smaller (approaching 50%) payload sizes for PUBLISH/SUBSCRIBE and CLIENT/SERVER packets, with correspondingly smaller encode/decode times.</li>
</ul>
The tradeoff, of course, is that <code>STRING</code>s can only represent 256 characters - usually the "C0 Controls and Basic Latin" (0000-007F) and "C1 Controls and Latin-1 Supplement" (0080-00FF) defined in ISO/IEC 10646. For a richer, multilingual character set, <code>WSTRING</code> with its attendant overhead costs must be used.<br />
<br />
Documentation for these FB types can be found in the <code>strings</code> folder of the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/navigator.htm" target="_blank">FBNavigator</a>.Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-19851848182376605302016-08-13T14:00:00.000-07:002016-08-13T14:03:47.140-07:00Accessing online documentationDocumentation for the library elements in the <code>strings</code> folder of the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/navigator.htm" target="_blank">FBNavigator</a> is now complete.<br />
You can now access this documentation directly in the new <b>doc</b> tab of the FBDK if you are on-line when you open a library element for editing. Here's an example:<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<img border="0" height="322" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1WKMtYQntJw/V6-KG00R7KI/AAAAAAAAkeg/1UxbYCPTrzI7XpO4BDl6TyWhUJG5dRhlQCK4B/s640/FB_LIMIT_WSTRING.png" width="445" /></div>
Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-63214393225116854502016-07-15T12:20:00.000-07:002016-07-15T12:20:12.159-07:00FBDK 2.5 and a new Design PatternThe <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/fbdk2/index.htm" target="_blank">FBDK 2.5</a> release is now available.<br />
If you already have the 2.4 release installed, it will automatically update if you are online the next time you start it up.<br />
This release contains the framework for the new <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/despats/tsd/index.htm" target="_blank">Time-Stamped Messaging</a> Design Pattern, as well as additional support for <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk2/saveas.htm" target="_blank">saving documentation</a> in PNG and HTML5 formats.<br />
Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-86071293165224383812016-04-23T19:22:00.001-07:002016-04-23T19:22:34.962-07:00FBNavigator Update (3)All of the documentation in the <code>events</code> folder of the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/navigator.htm" target="_blank">FBNavigator</a> has been updated to HTML5 using the updated "Save As HTML" feature in the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/fbdk2/index.htm" target="_blank">FBDK</a>. Next steps - update the corresponding FBDK documentation, then make sure the doc generation for System configurations is working properly.Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-54777619341544508702016-04-09T06:49:00.001-07:002016-04-09T06:49:35.316-07:00FBDK 2.4 Release<span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Release 2.4 of the FBDK is now available at </span><a href="http://www.holobloc.com/fbdk2/" style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #6611cc; cursor: text; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">http://www.holobloc.com/fbdk2/</a><span style="background-color: white; color: #222222; font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">.</span><br />
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
If you are already using a recent (2.2+) release, it will self-update to 2.4 if you are online when you start it up.</div>
<div style="background-color: white; border: 0px; color: #222222; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px;">
This release consists mainly of support for removal of Java applet dependencies in the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/navigator.htm" style="border: 0px; color: #6611cc; cursor: text; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">FBNavigator</a> in the light of Oracle's <a href="https://blogs.oracle.com/java-platform-group/entry/moving_to_a_plugin_free" style="border: 0px; color: #6611cc; cursor: text; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none;">recent announcement</a>, as previously documented in this blog.</div>
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For more details, and links to updated documentation as it is developed, you can follow this blog.</div>
Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-37484056028997852102016-04-08T20:41:00.000-07:002016-04-08T20:41:08.735-07:00FBNavigator Update (2)As a second phase of migrating the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/navigator.htm" target="_blank">FBNavigator</a> away from dependencies on the Java applet architecture, the documentation pages themselves will be converted to the use of static images rather than interactive View and Test applets. For examples of this style, see the <code><a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fb/rt/events/E_CTUD.htm" target="_blank">E_CTUD</a>, <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fb/rt/events/E_CYCLE.htm" target="_blank">E_CYCLE</a></code> and <code><a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fb/rt/hmi/FB_LABEL.htm" target="_blank">FB_LABEL</a></code> pages.
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In order to continue to provide the full experience of online documentation combined with viewing, testing (and even editing) IEC 61499 library elements, the online documentation described above is now accessible directly from the FBDK Editor under a new <b>doc</b> tab. Additionally, the Editor's <b>Save as HTML</b> function now produces a skeleton documentation page in the new format, and the <b>Save As PNG</b> function saves any desired View of the library element and its components with a unique hierearchical file name to facilitate its reuse in the new static web page format.</div>
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Documentation of these and other new features is not yet complete; links to the new documentation pages will be provided in this blog as they are completed.</div>
Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-16469929516260586622016-03-19T07:14:00.000-07:002016-03-19T07:14:08.773-07:00FBNavigator updateWith the announcements by <a href="https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2015/10/08/npapi-plugins-in-firefox/" target="_blank">Mozilla</a> and <a href="https://blogs.oracle.com/java-platform-group/entry/moving_to_a_plugin_free" target="_blank">Oracle</a>, and the <a href="https://java.com/en/download/faq/chrome.xml" target="_blank">discontinuance of NPAPI</a> support in the Chrome browser, the handwriting is on the wall for the Java plug-in, which for years has enabled the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/navigator.htm" target="_blank">FBNavigator</a> to provide a rich interactive on-line experience.
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As a first step toward managing this transition, the navigation tree on the left side of the FBNavigator page has been converted to a "pure HTML+CSS" implementation. This makes use of a small Java application that generates the required HTML files from the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/fbdk2/index.htm" target="_blank">FBDK</a>'s <code>map.ini</code> file.<br />
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Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-90248997495388528082016-01-22T18:50:00.000-08:002016-01-22T18:50:56.247-08:00Using FBDK with EclipseA skeleton Eclipse project has been created, which will enable you to run the FBDK as an external tool with the Eclipse IDE for Java.<br />
For details see<a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk2/howtoeclipse.htm" target="_blank"> http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk2/howtoeclipse.htm</a>.<br />
<br />Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-89153568668227356152016-01-12T15:11:00.003-08:002016-01-12T15:11:49.863-08:00Increased E_CHRON precisionThe precision of the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fb/rt/events/E_CHRON.htm" target="_blank"><span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;">E_CHRON</span> (chronometer) function block type</a> has been increased from milliseconds to microseconds. The accuracy of interval measurement may be limited to some value greater than 1 µs by the system-dependent accuracy of the Java <span style="font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace;"><a href="http://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/api/java/lang/System.html#nanoTime--" target="_blank">System.nanoTime()</a></span> method.Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-86733733729330317062015-10-14T12:25:00.003-07:002015-10-14T12:25:55.511-07:00Alternatives to Chrome for FBNavigator As of September 1, Google has disabled the NPAPI plug-in interface required to support Java applets in the Chrome browser, saying "If you want to use a website that uses an NPAPI plugin, you’ll need to use a different web browser." (<a href="https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/6213033" target="_blank">https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/6213033</a>). (Does this qualify as "evil" yet?)
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If you want to access the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/navigator.htm" target="_blank">FBNavigator</a> feature of the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/" target="_blank">Holobloc</a> website, you can use the <a href="https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/" target="_blank">Firefox </a>browser with the Java plug-in for Windows (<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-java-plugin-to-view-interactive-content">https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/use-java-plugin-to-view-interactive-content</a>) or the IcedTea plugin for Ubuntu.</div>
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For Raspbian, you can use the IcedTea plugin for the IceWeasel browser:<br />
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', monospace; font-size: 12px; text-align: justify;">sudo apt-get install openjdk-7-jdk </span><br style="font-family: 'Courier New', monospace; font-size: 12px; text-align: justify;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', monospace; font-size: 12px; text-align: justify;">sudo apt-get install iceweasel </span><br style="font-family: 'Courier New', monospace; font-size: 12px; text-align: justify;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: 'Courier New', monospace; font-size: 12px; text-align: justify;">sudo apt-get install icedtea-7-plugin</span><br />
This also enables it for the Epiphany browser that comes with the NOOBS installation.</div>
Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-40468890490351624112015-09-19T12:12:00.000-07:002015-09-19T12:13:54.288-07:00Simplified command line formats<span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">The command line formats for launching Systems and Devices have been simplified by taking advantage of the new system.jar and device.jar files, respectively. See <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk2/systest.htm#Remote" target="_blank">http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk2/systest.htm#Remote</a> and <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk2/systest.htm#System" target="_blank">http://www.holobloc.com/doc/fbdk2/systest.htm#System</a> for details.</span>Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-51289323624908446642015-09-19T10:46:00.002-07:002015-09-19T10:47:47.580-07:00FBDK 2.3 Release<div style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;">
A new release (FBDK 2.3, version 20150919) is now available. To facilitate reuse of the codebase on multiple platforms, this release encapsulates platform dependencies in "manifest" files contained in the corresponding <code>*.jar</code> files, which now include <code>fbrt.jar, editor.jar, system.jar</code> and <code>device.jar</code>.
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In order to obtain proper launching of this new configuration, you will need to replace your existing fbdk2.jar with the new version available at <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/fbdk2/">http://www.holobloc.com/fbdk2/</a>. Updates of the other files will then occur upon launching the fbdk2.jar file.</div>
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Descriptions of the new features will be posted to this blog with links to corresponding pages of the online documentation.
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Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5301575833727330512.post-41778943540140329742015-06-05T10:19:00.001-07:002015-06-05T10:19:28.867-07:00Drag and Drop (DnD) TaggingThe latest (20150602) <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/fbdk2/index.htm" target="_blank">FBDK2</a> self-update now supports DnD tagging of FB instances in the <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/despats/tags/index.htm" target="_blank">Tagged Data Design Pattern</a>. See the documentation at <a href="http://www.holobloc.com/doc/despats/tags/tags.htm#Tools" target="_blank">http://www.holobloc.com/doc/despats/tags/tags.htm#Tools</a> for details.
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Previous versions of the FBDK tried to support automatic application of tags under certain conditions, but this turned out to result in unanticipated and sometimes undesirable results.
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Jim Christensenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604939503810449473noreply@blogger.com0