Unified Automation Forum

UAExpert has a feature that is used with References - when the mouse is rt-clicked on a reference a context menu pops up with 3 options: "Follow reference", "Browse Reference Type" and "Show in Address space".

When the current selected node is a Variable node the Attribute "DataType" is shown in the attributes pane. Rt-clicking on the Attribute does nothing. It would be useful to have a similar context menu so references to the DataType NodeId can be followed to where it is defined under the Types folder.

Also, when a Reference (or DataType) is followed it would be very helpful if there were forward/back buttons that could be useful to go back-and-forth in the references that were followed. Similar to how a browser operates, with forward and back buttons.

This feature already may be in the product, but if so, it is not obvious where it is. There's a bulls-eye to show the current object in the address space but no way to go back.

Hello,

thank you very much for reporting and suggesting improvements. I have forwarded your request to the development team for consideration of the topics for the feature request of future versions.

The rt click context menu to (backwards) follow references only makes sense when the follow up target is unique. E.g. following backward to look up "parent" is easy doable, however looking forward may result in finding multiple children, hence which one to jump to, if having only one click operation? Anyways we will consider your suggestions.

Thank you.

Thanks for forwarding the request.

Just an fyi to your response:

"The rt click context menu to (backwards) follow references only makes sense when the follow up target is unique. E.g. following backward to look up "parent" is easy doable, however looking forward may result in finding multiple children, hence which one to jump to, if having only one click operation? Anyways we will consider your suggestions."

The DataType of a Variable Node is a NodeId that refers to a Node that is unique within a server, located somewhere below Root/Types/DataTypes/BaseDataType. In some ways it is similar to an ObjectType or VariableType, except that it refers to the format of the data within a single Variable node, not to the structure of objects below a node.

The NodeId of Data Types defined by OPCF has namespaceIndex = 0. The NodeId of DataTypes defined by the server, by companion specs, etc. will have a namespaceIndex other than zero.
For example, the UA demo server creates a custom structure Person, with NodeId = "ns=2;i=543210". This is located at Root/Types/DataTypes/BaseDataType/Structure/Person. Examples of using this type are in node Root/Objects/Demo/Static/Scalar/Structures/Person1, Person2 and Person3.