What does a blue field in OS App mean?

openstudio

asked 2016-02-19 04:36:44 -0500

Julien Marrec

29112 ●87 ●74 http://www.effibem.com/

updated 2016-02-19 04:41:34 -0500

In the GUI, there are some fields that are blue.

Blue fields

It seems that these are fields you can see but cannot modify, is that right?

What's the rationale behind it? Is this something that will be enabled later or something?

For example, the End-Use Category for this ElectricEquipment on the image above: I can see in that there's a setEndUseSubcategory method in the API. Why isn't it enabled in the GUI? Missing the link between the user typing something and behind the scene it modifies the osm?

Edit:

After using the API to set the End Use Subcategory, the fields are no longer blue in the App, and changing the end use subcategory in there does reflect in the osm after saving. So it seems these fields are actually fully functional?!

Enabled gas equipment

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Comments

they are registered democrats

__AmirRoth__ ( 2016-02-19 06:34:36 -0500 )edit

or Boise State Broncos

ericringold ( 2016-02-19 08:38:16 -0500 )edit

Thanks, that's really helpful guys!

Julien Marrec ( 2016-02-19 08:40:39 -0500 )edit

(I'm not mad, I'm just very disappointed in you both)

Julien Marrec ( 2016-02-19 08:40:55 -0500 )edit

I understand being disappointed in @EricRingold, who was both second and not funny, but why are you disappointed in me?

__AmirRoth__ ( 2016-02-19 16:32:11 -0500 )edit

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answered 2016-02-19 10:37:58 -0500

Kyle Benne
6027 ●4 ●9 https://www.openstudio.net/

updated 2016-02-19 10:39:05 -0500

The blue fields mean that there are optional data fields in the ModelObject that are empty.

OpenStudio Models are backed by idf syntax just like EnergyPlus. This is true while OpenStudio is working with the Model in memory and when it is saved to disk as an osm file. The latter is obvious if you have ever opened an osm file in a text editor (not something we support). For the blue to show up, optional fields at the end of an object have to be totally absent. If there is a comma or series of commas signaling one or more empty fields, you wont see blue in the inspector you will just see a text input with nothing in it.

This goofy blue is not exactly desired behavior and I would like to eradicate them whenever I get a chance. The simplest solution is to make sure all fields are initialized to some value, so when I create new model objects I make a point to initialize everything, but there are many early objects that still don't this.

Another trick to deal with this is to set the min-fields code in the idd object of the OpenStudio Model IDD file. This will force the OpenStudio guts to initialize all of those optional fields that may be at the end of an object to a blank. In other words it will insert a bunch of commas which has the handy effect of making the blue go away, although not initializing the fields to intelligent values.

If anyone (@julien Marrec) wants to make pull requests to address some of these I would be happy to accept and merge them.