Echelon OpenLNS Commissioning Tool - Manual (Page 323)

OpenLNS CT User’s Guide 307
You can use connection master SmartShapes to do the following:
• Specify a connection with a connection description other than the default connection description.
A connection description is a set of properties that apply to a connection, such as protocol service,
retry count, priority, and authentication.
• Establish multiple connections in a single operation. For example, instead of dropping several
individual Connector SmartShapes to establish multiple connections (digital output to digital
input, analog input to analog output, and so on), you can create a connection master SmartShape to
represent all these connections. The connection is displayed on the OpenLNS CT drawing as a
connection between the functional blocks on which the connections exist.
• Append a connection to an existing reference connection. For example, if you have a reference
connection between an input and output network variable representing time, you can create a
connection master SmartShape to quickly create connections to additional output network
variables representing time.
If you include one or more OpenLNS CT Connector SmartShapes in a custom OpenLNS CT master
SmartShape, the connections associated with each connector will be saved in the master SmartShape if
either of the following conditions is met:
• The functional blocks on both sides of the connection are included.
• The master SmartShape contains the connection, reference SmartShape (if any), and the functional
block SmartShape.
You can use reference connections in master SmartShapes to create fan-in or fan-out connections. If
all of the members in the reference connection are included in a master SmartShape, OpenLNS CT will
create a new connection (with a unique reference name) when you drag the master SmartShape to a
drawing.
If you create a master SmartShape with only a subset of a referenced connection, (for example,
Functional Block, Connector, and Reference SmartShapes), when you use the master SmartShape the
new functional block is added to the same connection as the other reference SmartShapes. For
example, assume you have a reference connection as shown in the following figure:
To create a master SmartShape that allows you to fan-in additional inputs to the Central Monitoring
Station functional block, copy the following SmartShapes to a new master SmartShape: