Geneos

Modifiers

Overview

Modifiers are settings which update the dashboard based on the changes in the Gateways that are being monitored. Modifiers can affect the following:

  • Fill colour based on severity of a data item.
  • Border colour based on the severity of a data item.
  • Text based on the name of a data item.
  • Text based on the value of a data item.
  • Picture based on the icon of a selected data item.
  • Replace the URLs in the dashboard object to point at the data item (this replaces all existing URLs, not add to them).

You can still edit the object's attributes through its Properties dialog. For more information, see Configure basic shape properties in Active Dashboard Palette.

Add modifiers

To add a modifier into a dashboard object:

  1. Drag and drop the selected data item, such as entities from the State Tree and data items from the Metrics view, into the desired object. This opens the Tools & Modifiers dialog.
  2. Select the modifier on the All Modifiers tab.
  3. Click OK.

If you have used the modifiers recently, then it appears on the Recently Used tab. There are two ways to see what modifiers are set up in a dashboard object:

  • Tooltips — hover the selected dashboard object and the tooltip displays the detail of the modifiers that are currently acting on it.
  • Properties dialog.

You can modify the data items that a modifier reacts to by changing the path in the properties dialog:

Wildcards can be used to modify the path. To know more about editing the object's path, see Path Editor.

Checking and updating a modifier on its own is not an expensive operation, but if you have dozens (or even hundreds) of modifiers, you may notice a higher CPU requirement on your local machine. You can change the rate at which modifiers evaluate in the advanced settings of the workspace.

Note: The dashboard refresh rate (in seconds) determines how long the dashboard should wait before it re-evaluates the modifiers. This means that the information on the dashboard could be up to number of seconds old, where X is your selected setting value. To modify the refresh rate, see Advanced settings in Workspace Settings.

Use Custom Modifier Manager

The Custom Modifier Manager allows you to modify the hardcoded modifiers that exist in the workspace with your own custom modifiers.

Modifiers link a property of a data item, such as an entity, probe, dataview, cell or headline, to a property of a dashboard object. These are contained as part of the workspace. The Active Console comes with a number of predefined modifiers, but you can also create your own using the Custom Modifier Manager.

To open this function, go to Active Console > Tools > Custom Modifier Manager.

All data items which match that path contribute to the effect of the modifier. If the path matches nothing, then the default value defined on the modification is used.

To create your own modifier:

  1. Open Custom Modifier Manager.
  2. Click Add.
  3. Select a value for each field:
    • Data item property.
    • Dashboard object property.
    • Default value.
    • Rules, if applicable.

This opens the Modifier Editor dialog:

Note: When you click OK, the new modifier automatically adds on the All Modifiers tab.

You can modify the following data item properties:

Data item property Data item type Effective type
Name Any String
Group Any String
Description Any String
AssignedUser Any String
Severity Any Int
Active Any Boolean
Snoozed Any Boolean
DatabaseLogging Any Boolean
UserAssigned Any Boolean
ID Gateway Int
Gateway.PrimaryHost Gateway String
Gateway.PrimaryPort Gateway String
Gateway.LogonDetails Gateway String
HostName Probe String
Port Probe Int
ConState Probe String
RejectionReason Probe String
RejectionMessage Probe String
OS Probe String
Version Probe String
Support Probe String
AssignedUser Any String
Type Sampler String
PluginName Sampler String
SampleInterval Sampler Int
AssignedUser Sampler String
OverviewType Dataview String
SampleTime Dataview Int
Value Cell or Headline Variant

You can modify the following dashboard object properties:

Dashboard object property Dashboard object type Effective type
SIZE_HEIGHT Group or Polygon Float
SIZE_WIDTH Group or Polygon Float
POSITION_X Group or Polygon Float
POSITION_Y Group or Polygon Float
FILLED Polygon Boolean
FILL_COLOUR Polygon Colour
FILL_TRANSPARENCY Polygon Float (0..1)
VISIBLE_BORDER Line or Polygon Boolean
BORDER_COLOUR Line or Polygon Colour
BORDER_THICKNESS Line or Polygon Float
BORDER_STYLE Line or Polygon Int
BORDER_TRANSPARENCY Line or Polygon Float (0..1)
TOOLTIP_TEXT Any String
LABEL_TEXT Any Polygon String
LABEL_FONT_SIZE Any Polygon Int
LABEL_FONT_COLOUR Any Polygon Colour
LABEL_CLIP Any Polygon Boolean
LABEL_BUFFER Any Polygon Float
LABEL_HORIZ_ALIGN Any Polygon Int
LABEL_VERT_ALIGN Any Polygon Int
PICTURE_STRETCH Picture Boolean
REPLACE_URLS Any String
ROTATE Any Float
GRADIENT_FILL_COLOUR Any Polygon Colour

Allowable mappings are:

Data Item Property Type Allowed Dashboard Object Property Types
String String
Int Float, Int, String
Boolean Boolean, Colour, String
Variant Boolean, Float, Int, String
Severity Colour

Expected values for modifiers

For some of the dashboard object properties, it may not be immediately obvious what values you need to set to get the desired effect, or even what values are allowable.

The following are the expected and allowable values for each property:

Property Dashboard object type Effective type Allowable values
SIZE_HEIGHT Group or Polygon Float Any numeric. This links the value of the data item property to the literal pixel width of the dashboard object. Avoid objects getting too large as the rendering time increases. If too large, it is generally exponentially larger the screen real estate allowed. Many screens have a width of up to 2000 pixels, so making an object more than 4000 pixels wide may decrease performance in the dashboard.
SIZE_WIDTH Group or Polygon Float Any numeric. This links the value of the data item property to the literal pixel height of the dashboard object. Avoid making too large objects the rendering time increases. If too large, it is generally exponentially larger the screen real estate allowed. Many screens have a height of up to 1200 pixels, so making an object more than 2400 high pixels may decrease performance in the dashboard.
POSITION_X Group or Polygon Float Any numeric. This links the X position of the dashboard object to the value of the data item property. The left hand corner of the dashboard represents 0, and the object will be positioned that many pixels from the left edge based on the data item value. Note that if the X position exceeds the width of the screen, then the object will be pushed off to the right and scroll bars will appear on the dashboard. You should avoid making the dashboard to large using this method. For example, moving an object to 4000 pixels make the dashboard 4000 pixels wide and increase rendering time. In the event that the number is negative, then the object will be moved to that negative position, followed by 0,0 being redefined. In effect, all other dashboard objects will appear to shift right.
POSITION_Y Group or Polygon Float Any numeric. This links the Y position of the dashboard object to the value of the data item property. The top left hand corner of the dashboard represents 0, and the object will be positioned that many pixels down based on the data item value. Note that if the Y position exceeds the height of the screen, then the object will be pushed off to the right and scroll bars will appear on the dashboard. You should avoid making the dashboard to large using this method. For example, moving an object to 4000 pixels make the dashboard 4000 pixels high and increase rendering time. In the event that the number is negative, then the object will be moved to that negative position, followed by 0,0 being redefined. In effect, all other dashboard objects will appear to shift down.
FILLED Polygon Boolean This maps a Boolean (true or false) data item property (such as snoozed or active), to the filled property of the dashboard object. Within the modification design, you can also invert this, i.e. if snoozed = true, then filled = false.
FILL_COLOUR Polygon Colour Only severity can be used for fill colour, and you will be able to select the colours that match to each severity value (Undefined, OK, Warning and Critical). In the event that no data items match the connected path, the undefined colour will be used.
FILL_TRANSPARENCY Polygon Float (0..1) This will match a floating point value, which must be within a 0 to 1 value. Where 1 = Opaque and 0 = 100% transparent, and any value in between on a sliding scale. For example, 0.25 is 75% transparent, and 0.5 is 50% transparent. Values outside of 0 to 1 will have no effect.
VISIBLE_BORDER Line or Polygon Boolean This will map a Boolean (true or false) data item property (such as snoozed or active), to the 'Visible Border' property of the dashboard object. Within the modification design, you can also invert this, i.e. if snoozed = true, then visibleBorder = false.
BORDER_COLOUR Line or Polygon Colour Only severity can be used for border colour, and you will be able to select the colours that match to each severity value (Undefined, OK, Warning and Critical). In the event that no data items match the connected path, the undefined colour will be used.
BORDER_THICKNESS Line or Polygon Float Any numeric. It does a literal mapping of the value to the pixel width of the border.
BORDER_STYLE Line or Polygon Int

This accepts a finite set of values, where values outside the set will have no effect. The allowable values are as follows:

  • 0 or 1 = Solid
  • 2 = Dashed
  • 3 = Dotted
  • 4 = Dotted / Dashed
BORDER_TRANSPARENCY Line or Polygon Float (0..1) This will match a floating point value, which must be within a 0 to 1 value. Where 1 = Opaque and 0 = 100% transparent, and any value in between is a slide scale. For example, 0.25 is 75% transparent, and 0.5 is 50% transparent. Values outside of 0 to 1 will have no effect.
TOOLTIP_TEXT Any String Any string or numeric value. This will append the string to the existing tooltips of the dashboard object.
LABEL_TEXT Any Polygon String This will map the data item property value to the text. In the event that the path within the modifier matches many items, the text will show all values as a comma-separated list.
LABEL_FONT_SIZE Any Polygon Int This will take an Integer data item property value and map it as a literal to font size of the dashboard object. 0 or negative values will be ignored.
LABEL_FONT_COLOUR Any Polygon Colour Only severity can be used for font colour, and you will be able to select the colours that match to each severity value (Undefined, OK, Warning and Critical). In the event that no data items match the connected path, the undefined colour will be used.
LABEL_CLIP Any Polygon Boolean This will map a Boolean (true or false) data item property (such as snoozed or active), to the 'Label Clip' property of the dashboard object. Within the modification design, you can also invert this, i.e. if snoozed = true, then Label Clip = false. The Label Clip property, if set to true, stops the text from being rendered outside of the shapes area.
LABEL_HORIZ_ALIGN Any Polygon Int

This accepts a finite set of values, where values outside the set will have no effect. The allowable values are as follows:

  • 0 = Left aligned
  • 1 = Center Aligned
  • 2 = Right Aligned
LABEL_VERT_ALIGN Any Polygon Int

This accepts a finite set of values, where values outside the set will have no effect. The allowable values are as follows:

  • 0 = Top Aligned
  • 1 = Middle Aligned
  • 2 = Bottom Aligned
PICTURE_STRETCH Picture Boolean This will map a Boolean (true or false) data item property (such as snoozed or active), to the 'Picture Stretch' property of the dashboard object. Within the modification design you can also invert this, i.e. if snoozed = true, then PictureStretch = false. The picture stretch determines whether a picture imported to the dashboard via the Picture widget retains its normal size, or stretches to fit the picture widget as its shape and ratio is changed.
REPLACE_URLS Any String This will take the string value from the data item property, and replace all URLs on the dashboard object with that string. There are a number of constraints around this, and probably gateways changes as well to make this useful.
ROTATE Any Float This will rotate the object as many degrees as the data item property (which needs to be numeric). For example, if the value changes to 10, then the shape will rotate 10 degrees. The rotation will occur based on the dashboard shapes current state, i.e. if it has been rotated in the past, a value of 10 degrees will rotate it a further 10 degrees, not a literal 10 degrees from a 0 degree start.
GRADIENT_FILL_COLOUR Any Polygon Colour Only severity can be used for gradient colour, and you will be able to select the colours that match to each severity value (Undefined, OK, Warning and Critical). In the event that no data items match the connected path, the undefined colour will be used.

Export and import modifiers

To export one or more modifiers:

  1. Go to Tools > Custom Modifier Manager.
  2. Select one or more modifiers from the list.
  3. Click Export.
  4. Enter the file name.
  5. Select a location on your local machine.
  6. Click OK.

To import a modifier in your workspace:

  1. Go to Active Console > File > Import.
  2. Select the modifier from your local machine.
  3. Click Open.

You can only import one modifier file at a time, although that file may contain many modifiers.

Note: It is recommended that you avoid having modifiers with the same name in the same workspace. This can cause confusion and potentially cause unpredictable operation of the dashboard. If there is an issue during the import, then a dialog detailing the problem appears.

Hyperlink in the dashboard

You can set up hyperlinks on dashboard objects which can go to:

  • Data items — you can link to a specific data item. This activates the link to open the most relevant dockable and change its contents to display the relevant data item. Linking it to a managed variable reconfigures and displays the dataview in the primary Metrics view dockable. However, when you click a dashboard object with an XPath URL that is not linked to a specific data item, the dataview displays in the Search Results dockable

Note: The path should be the full XPath to the data item, not the user readable version. This link follows this format: geneos://ac/dataitem//pathToDataItem

  • Other Dockable components of Active Console and follow the form: geneos://ac/dockablename
  • Individual tabs within dockable components — this includes other dashboards and follows the form : geneos://ac/dockablename/tabname
  • Conventional URLs — a web browser opens and be directed to the specified URL.

Link an Active Dashboard to another dashboard

To link an Active Dashboard to another dashboard, you can either set the configuration in the Properties > Links or open Object Inspector:

  1. Go to Active Dashboard in the Active Console.
  2. Create at least two tabs so you can choose where you want to link your existing dashboard.
  3. Drag an object into the dashboard canvas.
  4. Open Object Inspector.
  5. In the Links section, click Add. This allows you to define a URL.
  6. Click the ellipsis button next to the Undefined URL. This opens the Path Editor.
  7. Drag and drop the Component, Dockable, and Tab elements in the work area of the editor.

    1. Select Active Console on the Component element.
    2. Select Active Dashboards on the Dockable element.
    3. Select the dashboard name where you want to link your dashboard on the Tab element.
  8. Click OK.
  9. Right-click the object and click Links to open another dashboard. Alternatively, double-click the object.

Invoke user selection

Invoke links on dashboard objects at the same time

Links can be defined on dashboard objects through their properties dialog.

A dashboard object can have zero to many links. Prior to this, if you double-click the dashboard object with one to many links, then the first link will be invoked.

You can right-click the dashboard objects, and select the Links menu which expand allowing you to invoked a selected link. This allows you to invoke multiple links when you double-click the dashboard object.

In the end of the first URL, add an accessor to this link. This path:

dataitem(/geneos/gateway/directory/probe/managedEntity)

becomes:

dataitem(/geneos/gateway/directory/probe/managedEntity)/?(InvokeNextlink)

When the Active Console invokes a link from the dashboard, it look for the next link, then invoke that as well until it runs out of links, or finds one without the InvokeNextLink accessor.

Note: The path editor contains an accessor tool where the invoke next link is an allowable value.

The search results tab get populated with all entities, and the result replaced with all samplers. A search tab appears for the entities, and then a new (second) tab for all samplers. You must manually closed the search results because these are not persisted in the workspace.

Invoke links on dashboard objects to handle multiple XPaths

When a set of links on a dashboard object points at individual dataview, it can invoke each one using the InvokeNextLink function in the existing system. However, this overwrites the changes in the Primary Metric view. It is not possible to bring up all the dataviews. If this is what is intended, use the InvokeNextlink with an additional argument:

/?(InvokeNextlink(Temp))

The Temp argument tells the Active Console to show the dataview on its own window, rather than replacing the Primary Metric overview. This shows multiple disjoint dataviews by clicking the dashboard object.

Note: The paths to the dataviews must be fully qualified for them to work. The Temp window has the Dockable Manager 'Temp' flag set so that when it is closed, it will be removed from the dockable set and not saved to the workspace.

dataitem(/geneos/gateway[(@name="TRAINING_LAB_544823731")]/directory/probe[(@name="np_lab1")]/managedEntity[(@name="TRAINING1")]/sampler[(@name="CPU")][(@type="Infrastructure Defaults")]/dataview[(@name="CPU")])

Convert to list view dockable

When a link is invoked in the Active Dashboard or through the Search function in the Active Console, the results go to the search window as specific named tag. This allows you to create a new list view tab, including the specific location for the new list view.

  1. Right-click the tab you want to convert.
  2. Click Convert to List View.
  3. Click New Dockable on the Select Target dialog.
  4. Click Import.

Invoke user selection events from the dashboard

This allows you to invoke the user selection events from the dashboard directly, not only by using the state tree or list view dockable. When the link is invoked by a single, double-click on the dashboard object, or through the right-click menu, it simulates an action on that the specified data item.

In the example below, it is named as managed entity. This allows you to create selection panes in a dashboard, which when combined with follow selection paths, allows dashboards to be reconfigured by selecting other dashboard objects:

invokeuserselection(/geneos/gateway[(@name="TRAINING_LAB_544823731")]/directory/probe[(@name="Virtual Probe")]/managedEntity[(@name="TRAINING_LAB")])/

These hyperlinks can be added manually in the Path editor. You can also add them by dragging and dropping the data item in the interface, such as list view and state tree. Selecting the Invoke user Selection Hyperlink tool corrects the hyperlink.

Use the InvokeNextLink function to join together a follow selection event with a navigation to another tab. For example, add the following links:

invokeuserselection(/geneos/gateway[(@name="TRAINING_LAB_544823731")]/directory/probe[(@name="Virtual Probe")]/managedEntity[(@name="TRAINING_LAB")]))/?(InvokeNextlink)
geneos://component(ac)/dockable(Active Dashboards)/tab(Detailed Dashboard)

It is expected that you may not always want a dashboard to update based on the user selection event for dashboards. Filters can be added to the UserSelection paths to stop events being followed when paths do not match a filter. For example:

geneos://component(ac)/userselection(//managedEntity)

Invoke data item commands from the dashboard

This allows you to add hyperlinks to the dashboard objects that invoke user commands on data items, such as snooze, sample now, or restart probe.

Use the syntax:

/?(Command(/SNOOZE:manualAllMe,,1,manual,0,this))

Note: Active Console does not display any warning or error messages if the command or its parameters are incorrect. To avoid this, always check and ensure their commands syntax during configuration. Also, setting a password argument in the command sends the value as plain text only.

In the example below, the data items are specified. If the dashboard properties prohibit the selection of objects, a single click invokes the link:

dataitem(/geneos/gateway[(@name="TRAINING_LAB_544823731")]/directory/probe[(@name="np_lab1")]/managedEntity[(@name="TRAINING1")]/sampler[(@name="CPU")][(@type="Infrastructure Defaults")]/dataview[(@name="CPU")])/?(Command(/SNOOZE:manualAllMe,,1,manual,0,this))