An easy-to-use tool for building a flexible HMI, included with your groov EPIC.

I don’t think I am going too far out on a limb by saying that the web browser is one of the most commonly installed and used software applications on any device. You might read this intro in your email app, but you will soon switch to a browser to read this blog. (I hope!)

So why stop at just viewing your SCADA HMI screens in a browser—why not build them there as well?

Enter the groov View menu option, the focus of this part 8 of our 12-part blog series on the groov Manage menu.

groov View actually got its start many years before the groov EPIC, running on a small industrial computer that we built here at Opto 22 HQ in Temecula, California (where we build all our products—yup, 100% made in the USA). Then we released a version that runs on a Windows PC. Many versions later, here we are running it on the groov EPIC. You can view your groov View screens on the front touch screen of the EPIC itself, from an attached HDMI touch monitor, or using any web browser on any of the EPIC's connected networks. 

And as I mentioned, not just the View client, but also the Build application. This has to be one of the quickest tools I’ve used to build a fully responsive mobile and desktop HMI. No code—just drag, drop, connect a tag, save, and then view your results in your browser. Customers and integrators like One-Step Automation have found it so easy to use.

With its RESTful Data Store API accessible option, it's simple to get other applications to put tag values of different kinds into groov View screens, like Node-RED, for example.

Even Modbus TCP slave devices can be read directly into groov View to give your users visibility of these devices.

We are seeing a lot of customers who love using the HDMI interface on the EPIC to connect to a standard HDMI monitor, and run a machine/operator HMI with groov View on it. Along the same lines, many customers are mounting iPads in different enclosures and using them as HMI interfaces.

The bottom line is that having your HMI fully accessible in a web browser is so powerful. It's so easy to securely access and view/control your process as needed from anywhere on the network or remotely.

So what's on the groov Manage screen for groov View?

While you can set up groov Manage so the EPIC's front screen boots straight into groov View, you also have the menu option on this screen to open it in a new tab. Another handy feature: you can view any logs if you are looking for that data outside of groov View itself.

If you want to totally disable groov View from running or want to restart it, you can easily do that from the two blue buttons here on this page.

The amount of memory used can be very helpful, as you may inadvertently upload a very large base or background image. If so, it will show up here in how much memory your project is using. If you have a lot of trends or pages, you might find the CPU usage data very helpful to fine-tune your project to be more efficient.

The run timers are also handy to know as a diagnostic data point. Lastly, the current version of groov View is shown on the page, so you can easily get that bit of information if you need it.

In short, groov View is a powerful web-based application that allows our customers to get up and running with a fully responsive HMI in very little time. Back when groov EPIC was first released, this groov View status page was not a thing. So just as groov View has grown in features, so has groov Manage.

If you're looking for another resource to help you understand how groov View works, give our groov View Primer a try.

Be sure and subscribe to this blog so you can be notified when I review the last 4 menu buttons of groov Manage. You can also watch this complete overview video to get a summary of all 12 groov Manage buttons in one viewing.

Till then.

Cheers Mate.
-Ben