Table of contents
Grid view is a cloud-based application which allows a user to see and manager the complete setup of a site. You can find the grid view under your site dashboard within your zencontrol web portal. Using grid view is the most efficient way to manage and commission your site.
Can I use grid view?
Grid view is supported by most modern browsers. Currently the browsers and their relevant versions that we support are:
- Microsoft Edge: v15+
- Google Chrome: v59+
- Mozilla Firefox: v54+
- Apple Safari: v10+
Most other browsers that use the same engines are supported as well. Unfortunately we do not support any mobile browsers currently or any Internet Explorer versions.
Basics of grid view
Grid view is a very powerful tool when it comes to setting up and commissioning sites. There are a vast number of features that can be utilised during this process but without knowing the basics it would be hard to utilise them to their full extent.
Navigation
When you load grid view for the first time you will be taken to the control system view. A view in the grid view refers to the table of information that is currently displayed on the web page. If there is no information displayed on the webpage then that means that there are no entries of data on that site for that particular view. In that case of the control system view that means that no control systems have been added to the site so you must claim a controller in order to see any information in that view.
Located above the current view are tabs. These are the currently available tabs that you can click on to switch between views. The view that you are currently on will be highlighted in green. These tabs will change based upon the current perspective that you are currently viewing.
Perspectives are the buttons in the top-right corner of the grid view. They consist of an icon and some text. Clicking on a perspective button will change to the new perspective which will change the current tabs to the new ones for that perspective and will load up the first tab in the new perspective. The currently selected perspective will be highlighted in green.
Some cells in grid view will have a small icon in it indicating that the cell links to another view in the grid view. Clicking this icon will change to the relevant view and may also apply a filter to the data set for you so that only the relevant rows in the new view are visible to you. Some views taht are currently using this feature is the ECG view and some of the instance types perspective views. The icon will look like this:
Editing data
Views in the grid view will have two different background colours. A white background or a grey background. A white background indicates that the cell can be edited whilst a grey background indicates that the cell is read only for the purpose of displaying information and cannot be edited. Cells that are white can go grey in some cases such as when creating a row or changing certain fields. They may or may not go back to white depending on the case. Creating a new row will usually have the cells return back to white once it has successfully created whereas changing some particular fields will make other cells go grey and not change back.
Cells with a white background can be edited by either double clicking the cell, pressing enter whilst the cell is selected, begin typing whilst the cell is selected or in the case of a dropdown cell (a cell with a small arrow to the right side of the cell) by clicking the small arrow in the cell.
Once you have opened the cell editor there will be some form of input. For most cells this will just consist of a text box that you can type into. Dropdowns will have a text box you can type into which will highlight the most relevant choice in the list of options. Some cells will have a small dialog open with multiple inputs though. These are called tuple editors. Tuple editors are used when a cell requires more than one value for configuration. The inputs act the same as any other form of input.
To save changes either click away from the editor or press tab/enter. Pressing escape will cancel any changes that you have made in the editor. If the value you entered was invalid the cell will go orange and you can hover over the cell to see why it was invalid.
When you change the value of a cell in a view you will notice that at the top of the page next to the title some text changes. This text indicates if there are changes that are currently being sent to the cloud. If the text says that there are Changes syncing then there will be a number in the text indicating the number of changes that are currently trying to be sent to the cloud. Once they are sent the text will change to Changes synced and then disappear after some time.
If you try and leave the page whilst changes are syncing to the cloud then a dialog will appear asking if you are sure that you want to leave. It is best to wait until the changes are synced before leaving the page to ensure that your changes will be sent to the cloud.
Colours of the grid view
When editing data in the grid view you will notice that cells will change colours. At the bottom of the grid you will see a legend with a small help icon next to each that will explain what they do. Clicking the icon will take you to our grid colour FAQ. Knowing what each colour means will help you to understand what is currently happening with your product and if anything requires attention.
Most of the time colours that are not black (Ok) or green (Syncing) can be hovered over to see a message explaining why the cell is that particular colour. This gives some more insight into why something may not be functioning as you may expect it to.
Getting more advanced
Filtering
Above the tabs is a search bar. You can use this to type in search terms which will filter the table data to match the conditions in the search bar. Filtering can also be done using the dropdown menu located to the right of each table heading or by right-clicking any cell and click "Filter by selected X". More information on searching can be found by clicking the green question mark to the right of the search by or by visiting our search FAQ.
Right-click menu
Every view will have a right-click menu with different options. All right-click menus will at the very least have a "Filter by selected X" option which will filter the data by the currently selected value. Most of the views will have other options there which are unique to that view. For example the control system view has options to reboot or factory reset a control system in the right-click menu. This menu is vital to a lot of views for accessing some more advanced functionality such as sending lighting commands, removing rows and many other features.
Creating new rows
Some views allow creation of new rows such as the floors view. Floors that allow row creation will have a blank row at the bottom of the view and the row number will be a + icon. To create a new row you just need to edit the blank row with some data. It will then go grey and the row number will become a spinning icon. Once it has successfully created it will go back to white and will be able to be edited. If the row fails to create it will have a red border around it. The user can then remove the row and try to create the row again.
You are not limited to copying data from cells with white backgrounds. You also may copy data from read only cells (grey background) and paste them elsewhere if you wanted to.
Copying data around
If you have data in a view that you want copied to another location there are a couple of ways you can achieve this. The first one is simply by selecting the cells you want and then copying them by pressing Ctrl + C on your keyboard. This will copy all of the selected data to your clipboard. You can then use this to paste the data into any program you wish such as a document program or a spreadsheet program.
With your copied data you can then navigate to where you would like to copy the data and press Ctrl + V as you would with any other program and it will apply those values to the cell(s) that have been selected. You can also copy data from grid view and paste into another application and then later on copy that data from the other application and paste it back into grid view.
You can also use the drag-down functionality which we call autofill. It has the same functionality as using the copy/paste function except there is no need to use the keyboard for this. Autofill can only copy to cells directly next to the value you want to copy. Simple highlight any cells that you want to copy the data from and click and drag the square in the bottom right of the selection to the desired cells that you wish to copy the data to.
Sorting
Sorting of data in the grid can be done by clicking the heading of the column you want to sort (only works for the bottom row of column headers). The arrow will indicate whether the column is currently sorted in ascending, descending or no order.
If you want to sort by more than one column then you can do so by holding down the CTRL key and clicking one or more columns that you want to sort by. If you are sorting by multiple columns then a number will appear next to the sorting indicator which will show you which order in the multi column sorting that the column is being sorted by.
Comments
0 comments
Article is closed for comments.