The best way to know Control Web better is to download its evaluation version, which also contains more than 1500 pages of documentation in the CHM format and number of educational examples. Evaluation version works almost the same way as retail version, it is limited only in communication with hardware devices and in the inability to work continuously without interruptions.

To get at last general overview of the system, we introduce a list of Control Web basic features.

What is it Control Web?

• Software system for rapid application development for industry, schools, laboratories,...

• Visualization and control of technology processes in real time

• Bridge between technology and ERP

• Human-machine interface

• Direct control of machines and technology lines

• Simulation, research and development, education

Supported hardware

• Control Web is consistently designed to be independent on particular hardware devices

• It can communicate with any hardware with proper driver

  • PLC (Siemens, Mitsubishi, Omron, Teco, Allen-Bradley, ABB, Honeywell, …)

  • I/O modules (DataLab IO, ELSACO, ADAM, Axiom, …)

  • plug-in cards (Advantech, Axiom, Tedia, …)

  • „virtual“ devices, e.g. WWW servers etc.

• Driver architecture is open and well documented, everybody can implement his or her own driver

Support for open protocols

• ASCII communication over serial (COM) line

  • Character-based protocol is used by number of simple devices …

• OPC Data Access

  • Ever increasing number of OPC servers

• DDE / NetDDE, FastDDE

  • Backward compatibility with DDE servers

• GSM modems, SMS messages

• HTTP access to WWW servers

• Modicon Modbus, Modbus/TCP

• ...

Support for open standards

• Wide interoperability thank to support of standard protocols and data formats

• TCP/IP, HTTP, HTML (Ethernet, WiFi, dial-up, …)

• ODBC / SQL

• COM / ActiveX

• OPC (OLE for Process Control)

• GSM / GPRS

• DDE, NetDDE

Ability to work in distributed environment

Control Web Runtime („thick client“)

• Control Web application can share data over network, call procedures remotely etc.

• data can be shared (synchronized) to ensure reliability (clustering)

• or it is possible to access remote data

• both ways can be freely combined to create either client/server or peer-to-peer applications

Application access through WWW browser („thin client“)

• Control Web contains embedded HTTP server, which enables dynamic applications based on WWW technologies, accessed with standard WWW browsers

• It is possible to create server applications for wide numbers of clients, from fully-featured PCs to mobile phones

• Application richness can be adjusted according to requested reach - various clients on various operating systems support various technologies (pure HTML, DHTML/CSS, Java, ActiveX, ...)

Platform support

Control Web supports all Win32 platforms:

• Windows 9x/Me (already obsolete)

• Windows XP Embedded (can run from CF card, without HDD)

• Windows 2000 Advanced Server Clusters

• Windows CE on standard x86 PC (CEPC)

• Windows CE na RISC system (versions for ARM, MIPS, SH3/4 CPUs)

Support for languages and text encoding

Text encoding support

• Control Web ANSI (8-bit characters for Europe and USA)

• Control Web UNICODE (16-bit characters for all alphabets on Earth)

• UNICODE version is requested for eastern languages support

Language support

• Development and runtime versions in Czech, English, Japanese and German

• Runtime version messages can be adopted to any language

• Runtime in Slovak, Russian, ...

Continuous operation

• Control Web is designed for continuous operation, 24 hours, 7 days a week

  • Server cw.mii.cz maximum uptime is 472 days, restart was necessary due to Windows NT patch, not by Control Web failure

• Internal rigorous tests ensure there is no memory leaks (every memory allocation is traced and paired with deallocation etc.)

• Control Web is used in critical environments Škoda Volkswagen, Nuclear power plant Dukovany, Barum Continental…

• Control Web runs on critical application within Moravian Instruments (online activation and registration system, company WWW server, etc.).

Scalability

• Control Web has no internal limitations regarding number of communication channels (I/O points), number of operator screens, number of virtual instruments within panels, number of connected PLCs and other devices etc.

• There are limitations induced by memory size, CPU speed, bus bandwidth etc.

• Number of Control Web applications are relatively huge:

  • Tenths of thousands of channels on one computer…

  • Tenths of PLCs connected to one computer…

  • Thousands of panels in one application…

Unlimited programmability

• Embedded programming language with real-time enhancements enables implementation of arbitrary control algorithms

• Object API of all components (virtual instrument) allows program to control their behavior

  • For instance data archiving, SQL queries, dynamic HTML pages creation etc.

• Event interface of virtual instrument enables response to various states

• Channel attributes can be used to precisely control communication timing and to detect delays and/or failures (Status, Error, QoS, Round-trip-time, Timeout, ...)

Safe programming model

• Application program has no direct access to computer memory

• This eliminates problem with invalid pointers

• Also failures caused by memory leaks are eliminated

• Expression errors (division by zero, array index out of range, over/underflow, precision lost, ...) can be handled

• Error condition can be detected

User access control

• Control Web implements full control of user access to various parts of application

• Users have assigned UIDs (User IDentifiers)

• Access to every part of the application can be limited to specific UIDs

• Application can detect operator login/logout

• The same user access system is extended also to WWW pages

Protection of investments

• Control Panel / Control Web systems keep backward application compatibility for more than 10 years

• New version brings significant improvements and architecture enhancements, but it allows loading of application source code of previous version

  • Customer investments to application development and maintenance are protected

  • Customer investments to know-how and education of development staff are protected

• Application is always stored in the form of text source code

Customer support

• Technical support is unlimited and free for all customers within the lifespan of particular product

  • Accessible over phone, fax, e-mail, WWW

• Development staff training

Complete and detailed documentation

• More than 1500 pages of documentation, tutorials and references

• Documentation divided to 6 parts

• Standard CHM and PDF formats allow browsing of the documentation from the Integrated Development Environment or printing of the whole documentation

Simple and fast application development

• Development should not be expensive

• Application is often used only once or several times, another usage usually requires changes

• Development must be fast

• Customer cannot wait months or years for application development and debugging …

• Programmers have no spare time for extensive study, they want to reuse what they already know

Integrated development environment

• „Drag-and-drop“ programming

• Virtual instruments are dragged from Instrument Palette window

• Properties are modified in uniform Instrument Inspector window

• It is not necessary to understand programming to develop applications in Control Web

• Application functionality is controlled by parameters and expressions

• Programming language is available to solve demanding customer requirements

Control Web — assured future

Control Web perfectly works on the pre-alfa versions of the future Microsoft operating system code-named Longhorn