Live overview

9 min readLive

Live is the program that runs the prepared project: it communicates with the PLCs, displays the screens, and keeps alarms and records. This topic describes startup, the main screen elements, the connection state and shutdown.

What is Live

Live (FabyaVision_Live.exe) is the program that runs the project prepared in Studio. It reads the Live file (.fvl) produced by Studio, connects to PLCs and other devices for tags, shows the screens to the operator, monitors alarms, archives data, and runs scheduled tasks and scripts. Screens are drawn with WebView2 on Windows; therefore Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime must be installed on the computer. If it is not installed, Live shows the message Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime is not installed on this computer and closes.

Live only runs the project; screen, tag or alarm definitions cannot be changed in it. To make a change, edit it in Studio and upload the project to Live.

How to open Live

The project that runs at startup is determined in the following order:

Project on the command line
If a project file is passed to Live (FabyaVision_Live.exe C:\Projeler\Tesis\Tesis.fvl), that project opens directly. The Start Live button in Studio writes the .fvl file next to the project and starts Live in this way.
Last project
If no project is given on the command line and Start automatically with the last project is on, the most recently opened project opens without the project selection screen being shown. In a new installation this option is off.
Select project screen
Otherwise the project selection screen appears. Details: Files and folders of Live.

Project selection screen: the projects in Live's project folder are listed as cards (with a sample project list).

Project card: The project name, description, N screens · N tags, author, modification date, file size, path relative to the folder and latest revision (Rev. N, date, uploader, description). The most recently opened project carries a Last opened badge. A file that cannot be read is shown as a red Unreadable card with a message giving the reason.
Change folder…: Selects another folder that contains projects; the selection is saved.
Open folder: Opens the project folder in Windows Explorer.
Refresh: Scans the folder again (F5).
Open from file…: Selects a project file outside the folder.
Start automatically with the last project: If on, when the program starts the last project opens without showing the selection window.

Clicking a card, or selecting it with the arrow keys and pressing Enter, opens the project; H shows the revision history of the selected project (without opening the project). If the folder is empty, the page says There are no projects in this folder and reminds you how to upload from Studio.

A short splash screen appears during startup; the main window comes up when it is ready.

Main display

Live main screen (Demo Project): menu bar, screen area and the system menu button at the bottom right.

Screen area: Most of the screen is taken up by the open main screen. The first screen is the project's Start screen (the first screen if none is selected). The screen is fitted proportionally to the window; if Page size is set to Actual size, it is shown at its designed pixel size and scroll bars appear when needed.
Fixed top and bottom area: Upper and lower strips that stay on every screen, if defined in Screen management. The navigation menu usually sits here. See Screen management.
Menu bar and toolbars: If defined in the project, it appears at the edges of the screen. See Menus and toolbars.
Alarm line: When Show alarm line is on and an alarm is active, the most important alarm line appears at the bottom of the screen: the number of alarms, time, alarm number and text, and pending acknowledgement if the alarm is waiting to be acknowledged. Clicking the line opens the Alarms window.
Status bar: If Live settings › Window › Status bar is on, a thin bar appears at the bottom of the display: the logged-on user on the left, the open screen in the center, the PLC connection summary and the clock on the right. Details: Live settings.
System menu button: The ☰ button at the bottom right. The panel that opens from the right contains the session, screens, connection states, system actions, on-screen keyboard, language and closing the program (see below).

Status bar: the logged-on user, the open screen, a connection summary, and the time. If there is only a simulator connection, the summary reads Simulator . — Status bar: the logged-on user, the open screen, a connection summary, and the time. If there is only a simulator connection, the summary reads *Simulator*.

System menu

Click the ☰ button to open a full-height panel at the right edge of the window. Click the × at the top of the panel, or click outside the panel, to close it. The title, the session row and Exit Live stay fixed; the sections between them scroll if they do not fit. The color of the panel does not depend on the Live theme: it appears with the same navy background in light and dark themes.

Section	Content
Title and user	Project name; the user in the session (or Logged out if there is none), the user group, and the Log on / Log off button.
Screens	The start screen and the favorite screens, in that order. Other screens are reached with the navigation buttons on the screen itself. A screen that requires authorization appears with a lock icon; clicking it asks for a logon. The open screen is highlighted.
Connections	Each connection and its state: connected, connecting, no connection, no driver, inactive (disabled) or simulator. When the connection is lost, the cause of the error is written below it. For connections that require a user name / password there is an Enter password / Password… button.
Redundant server	Only in a redundant server pair: the role of this station (master / standby), the partner server, the arbiter states and, on the master, Hand over master role….
System	Action buttons that open windows (table below).
Station	The On-screen keyboard switch (Active / Inactive) and Keyboard theme (selected with a preview through Change…). Both apply to this computer only (On-screen keyboard).
Project language	Language buttons, if more than one language is enabled in Live in the project.
UI language	The language of menus and windows: Turkish, English, Español, Deutsch, Italiano, Français; each with a flag.
Subsection	Exit Live.

Buttons in the System section:

Button	When it appears	What it opens
Alarms	Always; if there are active alarms, their number is shown next to it.	The Alarms window (Operator alarm handling).
Previous screen	Always; inactive if there is no screen to return to.	Returns to the previous screen.
Time machine…	If included in the license and recording is on.	Time machine.
Change project…, Revision history…	On the Live computer.	Project selection screen and the revision list of the project (Uploading to Live).
Tasks…	If the project has a scheduled task.	The last run, result and next time of the tasks (Troubleshooting).
Remote monitoring…	On the Live computer.	Server state, addresses, firewall permission (Remote monitoring).
Web viewers…	If browser monitoring is on in the project; with the number of viewers if any are connected.	List of connected browsers and TVs (Web viewers).
OPC UA server…	If the OPC UA server is on in the project.	State of the server and connected clients (OPC UA Server window).
Notification center…	If notifications are on in the project, or if there is an enabled report plan with e-mail recipients.	Sending status, queue, delivery log, passwords, test send (Notification Center window).
Report archive…	If the project has a performance report.	Report plans and the PDF / Excel files produced (Performance reports).

Menu details and operator operations are described in the Operator guide. In browser monitoring the menu is simplified (Remote monitoring).

Connection states

The state of each connection is monitored for as long as Live is running; if a connection is lost, Live tries to reconnect. The states appear in the system menu, in the status bar (PLC: 3 / 4 connected) and in the <Bağlantı>_Baglanti status tags. The causes of errors are listed in the topics Connection diagnostics and Troubleshooting.

If the same project runs redundantly on two computers, only the master Live communicates with the PLCs; the standby gets the values from it and takes over if the master does not respond (Redundant server pair).

Shutdown

The Exit Live button brings up this question: Exit the Live program? Monitoring, alarms and logging will stop. Once Close is confirmed, the scheduled At Live shutdown tasks run, the additional applications marked Close on exit are closed, the persistent tag values are written and the program closes. If Require authorization to exit is on (Live settings › General › Session), closing requires a user with the exit authorization; if there is no session, the login window opens.

If Closing and Alt + F4 are blocked in the window settings, the window button and Alt+F4 do not work; the program can be closed only from the system menu.

Limitations and points to note

Live runs only one project at a time. Change project… closes the open project and opens the selected one (monitoring, alarms and logging stop until the new project is opened; confirmation is requested).
Blocking Alt+F4 and blocking the Windows keys on a real keyboard must be tried in the field; real key input is not sent in the automated tests.
If the WebView2 process crashes, Live reloads the screen and recovers where it left off; if the main browser process terminates, the program closes. For details, see Log files.