Now it’s time to explain a litte bit the structure of the GUI and how the user has to handle it.

Starting telos I2C Studio the first time the user in confronted with a splash screen for a while. Depending on the system speed, it takes a moment until I2C Studio opens up with a blank workspace.

What the user is presented starting I2C Studio the first time is a nearly blank workspace on the middle left side and a so called startpage on the right. The applications window top hosts a menubar and a toolbar with some buttons beneath.

Most of the toolbar buttons and parts of the menubar selections are grayed out at the very first start simply because no module functionality has been added to the I2C Studio so far. In this state another component of the application is nearly invisible: The statusbar resides at the bottom of the application window, showing only a link to the telos homepage as its default setting.

The main component for working with the I2C Studio is the Workspace. Here the user can perform most activities he has to do in his daily work.

The Workspace resides on a tabcontrol, wich contains a second tabpage. The second tabpage hosts a Find-dialog for searching within traced I2C data.

Right-clicking on a node of the treeview within the Workspace opens a contextmenu, that offers some options. The kind of shown options depends on the type of the selected node – just as the name contextmenu expresses.

...

On the right hand side of the Workspace there is a tabcontrol hosting the windows for a Master, Tracer or Script Window as tabpages. The Start Page tabpage is inserted as default. The user can navigate through tabpages by clicking the tabs.

Now, as indicated in the last chapter, the user has to add a certain function window to the I2C Studio to start working on the I2C bus.

Selecting and right-clicking one of the main nodes Master, Tracer or Script in the Workspace’ treeview offers simply the option New, what means the option to add a new function window of the chosen functionality.

E.g. right-clicking on Master and selecting New leads the user to the process applying a new Master Window to the I2C Studio.

 

Workspace context menu

 

Using the New-button from the toolbar lets the user choose a functionality from a list of all functionalities available.

This list is presented in a dialog within a treeview. The view of the functionalities is cut into different treenode levels - the first describes the used I2C Scheduler* and the second level the I2C boards with serial number. Keeping it simple lets assume that only the local I2C Scheduler service is available.

The intrinsic functionalities to be chosen are placed in the third level grouped to the according I2C boards.

 

New Dialog

 

If the user selects a functionality and presses Ok, a new tabpage with a function window is created and automatically brought to front.

Furthermore a sub-node is added to the appropriate main node in the Workspace’ treeview showing an open book icon.

These Workspace icons plays a major role for function window state control. The availablity of function windows on one hand side and the associated hardware one the other side is signalled with different subnode icons. The following picture shows a workspace with all possible states.

 

Workspace with different hardware and

function window states

 

According to the state of the function window the context menu of a sub-node offers different options:

• Open/Close
  Open or close the appropriate function window file.
• Reconnect
  Associate a new I2C board with the function window.
• Remove from disk
  Delete the function window file from disk.
• Remove from Workspace
  Delete the function window from Workspace; the file is still available on disk.
• Rename
  Change the name of the function window file.
• Info**
  Opens a dialog, which gives information of all referenced files and I2C boards.

 

 

	Function window is closed. The associated I2C board is available.
	Function window is closed. The associated I2C board is not available.
	Function window cannot be opened. The referenced file is not available.
	Function window is open and active.
	Function window is open.
	The hardware associated with the active function window is not available. It has to be reconnected to an appropriate I2C board. (This icon can appear temporarily when the function window is opened)
	The hardware associated with the function window is not available. It has to be reconnected to an appropriate I2C board. (This icon can appear temporarily when the function window is opened)

Workspace function window state icons

 

* A short explaination for the I2C Scheduler at this point: This is an essential middleware component of the telos I2C software environment running as a process in the background.

 

Now, that a I2C board is associated with a function window in the I2C Studio, there can be done some changes to the settings of the I2C board if necessary.

 

Hardware settings

 

The options presented in the Hardware-dialog are dependend on the used I2C board. Read the rest of the chapter to learn more about the options and their meaning.

 

 

	Output Test Pin Trigger	Termination	Bus Type	Threshold
Tracii XL	X	X	X	X
Connii MM	X*	-	-	-
Connii	-	-	-	-
Tracii 400	X*	-	-	-

Adjustable settings on I2C boards

 

• Trigger Conditions For Output Test Pin
  Some I2C boards provide an output test pin that can signal certain events. On Tracii XL and Tracii 400 boards, this test pin is an open drain output with 10 kW pull-ups. The signal is a 10 μs high pulse. See table below to learn which output test pin triggers are supported by each telos I2C board.

	START	STOP	ACK	NACK	ERROR
Tracii XL	X	X	X	X	X
Connii MM	X	X	-	X	-
Connii	-	-	-	-	-
Tracii 400	X	X	X	-	X

Output trigger conditions

 

• Termination
  Dependent on the busload the termination of the I2C bus can be adjusted between 10440 ohms and 992 ohms to manipulate the signals slew rate.
• Voltage Threshold
  The level for a valid high and low signal can be defined in a range between 10% and 45% (low) and 55% and 90% (high). The changed level is visualized in the picture underneath the control bars. The voltage thresholds are parameters that define the interpretation of the analog signals. If an I2C bus signal is high and falls below the low level threshold, it is treated as a high/low transition. If an I2C bus signal is low and rises above the high level threshold, it is treated as a low/high transition.
• Bus Type
  I2C Studio supports I2C buses (I2C) and SMBuses (SMB). The selection affects the trace visualization (see Tracer) as well as the master operations (see Master).

The I2C Studio offers some global settings that can be manipulated by the user. These settings reside in the dialog Options|Preferences.

The Preferences dialog contains directory settings for the default location of the Workspace, function window files and the logfile.

Furthermore this is the place to configure the I2C Scheduler for remote access by setting the Enable checkmark and defining a password.

The default TCP/IP port the I2C Scheduler is working on is port 3000. This can also be changed if necessary.

If a Tracii 400 board is connected to the computer, select the appropriate parallel port to enable Tracii 400 access in I2C Studio.

The reply e-mail address is needed to send error reports in case of an I2C Studio misbehaviour. Such a report should help telos to grant quick support to the customer.

With the proxy settings the user can force I2C Studio to use the proxy settings of the Microsoft Internet Explorer. An internet connection is used when checking for updates and to send error reports.

 

Preferences dialog

Two special features are coming with I2C Studio:

• I2C Register Desciption (IRD). It stands for a technology, which introduces an entirely new level of device access.
• Plug-In support. The user can write own .NET assemblies describing the interfaces of a certain IC to interpret its register contents at runtime.