Running Projects

Introduction

Hello and welcome to the new quick start guide on how to best use Movicon.NExT™.
In this technote we will show you how to run a project developed with the Movicon.NExT™ platform.

Procedure

Movicon.NExT offers different modes to run projects that it has been used to develop.
As you already know, a Movicon.NExT project is composed of a Server side, which communicates with the field and handles data, and a Client side, which is the graphical HMI part of the project.  
The simplest and most immediate way to run a project is to start it up in runtime directly in the editor and which is also ideal for testing the project while developing it.
To do this:

• Make sure that the project is open in editing mode.
• Click the green play icon representing the Start Runtime button in the editor's top toolbar.

After having pressed the Start Runtime button, the system will launch both the Server and Client sides. The latter will be started up according to the settings defined in the project's Startup Page Type property.
Lets take a closer look at this property.
This property can set with three distinct values:

• Main Screen: this startup page will be one of the screens created in the project and the one configured Startup Screen Name property. If this property is left without a name, Movicon.NExT will search for a screen called “Main” and will show it as the main screen. Otherwise, it will show the first screen in the project in alphabetical order.
• Tile Page: this startup page will show with the Windows 8 “Tile” interface through which the user can choose which screen to open.
• GeoPage: this startup page will be shown as a geographical map on which the different project resources have been placed. This type of startup page is normally used when the project has one or several child projects located in different geographical sites. Clicking on one of these sites will open the corresponding project.

Another way to start the project up is to use a command line which can be used within a connection or batch file. A command line of this type would generally be:

"C:\Program Files\Progea\Movicon.NExT 4.X\MoviconNExTRT.exe" -file="<Drive>:\<ProjectPath>\<ProjectName>.UFProject" -start

This command starts up both the local project's Server and Client sides.
To achieve this, Movicon.NExT offers a command in the editor that automatically creates a connection on the current logged on user's desktop.
This command is called Create Runtime Shortcut and can be found on the Options menu.
Since the Movicon.NExT project is built with two sides, Server and Client, they can also be started up individually in the same way described above. For example, the Server side can be started up by using a button designated to do this on the Start Server toolbar.