ZomB: a C# Drag and Drop Dashboard

[byteit101]

Team 451 would like to share our ZomB Dashboard (Yes, you read that right, zombie) that we have been working on, and get some feedback. We have used this successfully for a few response testing, like ultrasonic (it looks good on a graph)

Pre-build controls: AnalogMeter, DataGraph(inspired by taskmanager), DirectionMeter, DistanceMeter, SpikeControl, RoundSpeedMeter, TacoMeter(Yes, it even has cheese), MessageDisplay, VarValue, OnOffControl, ColorFind(Totally misleading name, still testing)

There are 2 parts, the dashboard, and the robot files.
Requirements: Visual Studio 2008, .Net 2.0
Note: we use C++, but you can do this in java and LabView also, look at the bottom of this post for the format

The robot side files are ZDashboard.h and cpp, copy them into your project and add at the top of the main file #include "ZDashboard.h"
in your code, create a ZDashboard object , and initialize it.

class RobotDemo:public SimpleRobot
{
   //...
   ZDashboard ZomB;
public:
   RobotDemo():
      /* ... */ ZomB()
   {
      //...
   }
//...

Whenever you want to send some data to the dashboard, use the Add function, and then Send it off with the Send function

//...
void OperatorControl()
{
   while(IsOperatorControl())
   {
      ZomB.Add("controlName","controlValue");
      ZomB.Add("grph2",stick.GetY());
      ZomB.Send();
      Wait(0.02);
   }
}
//...

Now, Launch Visual Studio 2008 (express edition also works), and Open the Dashboard Solution, and open Form1 of the DefaultDash Project. Click on the control you want to have update, in our test case, the graph. Find the BindToInput and change it to what you specified in the code. Run both the Dashboard and the Robot and have fun!

Some notes:
THIS IS BETA!!! I am still working on bugs, the least tested feature is the VarValue control and the var and AddDebugVariable functions. please report any bugs
the .Net controls features are in the .Cat group. most have Max, Min, and Value.
DataGraphs cannot have a Min less that 0
Taco is pure fun
To see what each control does, open the test project (run it), click on a control, and move the slider at the top (EDIT: direction and analog meter barely move). onoff and spike are click state change, the thing in the lower right corner is a drag and drop sample, not related
to create a new Dashboard, make a new project, Reference System451.Communications.Dashboard.dll (in dash/System451.Communication.Dashboard/bin/Release folder), build the project. the controls will appear at the top of the toolbox, they are drag and drop. add 1 dashboardDataHub control. in the constructor (or a start button) add this code

dashboardDataHub1.AddDashboardControl(YourControls);
dashboardDataHub1.AddDashboardControl(AnotherControl);
dashboardDataHub1.StartRecieving();

It is Ready!

the Format of the strings, which can be Printf'd from the Dashboard class is
@@@451:|controlname=value|name=value|:451@@@