Applies To:
  • CitectSCADA 6.xx, 7.xx
  • Vijeo Citect 6.xx, 7.xx
  • PowerLogic SCADA 6.xx, 7.xx 
Summary:
I have a page with an ActiveX object on it and I am trying to control it using Cicode on a separate pop-up page. However, this does not work and I get hardware alarms similar to the following:



Why does this not work and how can I work around this?

Solution:
When you insert an ActiveX object on a page it becomes bound to that page and therefore, any ActiveX Cicode functions that are called to access that ActiveX object will only work when that particular page is in focus. As soon as you open up a separate pop-up page, the parent page containing the ActiveX object no longer has focus so any calls to access the ActiveX object (i.e. using ObjectByName, _ObjectCallMethod, etc) will fail and hardware alarms will be triggered.

To work around this, you need to change the Cicode focus back to the page containing the ActiveX object by using the WinSelect Cicode function. Please note that the Cicode focus is different from the visual / mouse focus. When the WinSelect function is used, there will be no visual change to the screen. The argument that you need to pass into the WinSelect function is the windows number of the page containing the ActiveX object, which will need to be captured using the WinNumber Cicode function.

An example of how this can be carried out is:

1. Create a disk/memory/local variable tag to store the Windows Number.
2. On entering the parent page containing the ActiveX object, set this tag using the WinNumber Function.
3. On the pop-up page, call the WinSelect function prior to calling the ObjectByName function.
 
Keywords:
ActiveX, popup, pop-up, Unrecognised named object 

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