Active Controls Window

The Active Controls window includes controls provided by external libraries. Each library optionally may include active controls as part of its integrated GUI.

HWAccess provides a template mechanism that allows a library to hook a dialog under this window. Showing or hiding this window is a global switch applicable to all DLL's. At the bottom of the window there is a navigation control that switches among the installed DLL's that support active controls. When no libraries with active controls are present, this window is blank but still visible.

Adding or removing external libraries is handled by HWAccess dynamically so this window is updated as part of the library insertion/removal options. This window may float or dock left/right in the main application frame.

Message Exchange Window

The Messages option shows/hides the message window which is used by the external libraries and HWAccess to display the current action they perform. These messages are only used for information and debugging purposes. Using a mouse right click within the messages window you have the option to erase the current list of messages. The message list stores the last 4000 messages send by the libraries. After that it will erase the oldest messages and replace the with the new ones. The messages window can float or dock to the bottom of the main application.

Parameters Window

The Parameters window is the DLL navigation for the system hardware information. DLL typically add navigation information during initialization and refresh operations. The window is in effect a tree view and acts as a collection of information. By clicking an entry HWAccess informs the library of information change and acquires the data of the parameter. Such information is first formatted and finally is displayed within the main view.

The way the entries are structured is DLL specific. Some libraries like the PCI may utilize the tree structure to illustrate bus, device and function topology. Other libraries like the disassembler simply add filenames or physical memory addresses and do not follow a specific structure. Please refer to the specific DLL documentation for further information.

Resource Activity Window

The Resource Activity window displays I/O, memory, register access as well as messages send by the external libraries requesting H/W services. This panel is used for debugging purposes and can keep up to 256 samples total for all types of resources. Sampling period is 1 sec. The window has low priority in terms of updates. 

I/O shows in KBytes the number of I/O transactions processed by the DLLs. Memory indicates the linear addresses being accessed in MBytes by the DLLs. MSRs are in single units those processed mainly by processor related libraries. Main messages are those which posted by the HWAccess to the DLLs. Aux messages are those posted by the DLLs to HWAccess.

Main View

The main view in HWAccess contains information send by an external library. Such information is displayed as text and stored by the application in a buffer. Save and print operations typically use the contents of this view for output to a printer or to a file. The external libraries may also request access to this view and an interface mechanism can pass back and forth data between the library and HWAccess. The user may also copy the contents of this view to the clipboard and paste them to another application that accepts files of text format. When the find function is activated the main view is the target window of the search.

HWAccess cannot control what is send from a library to display. However it does perform text conversion from ASCIIZ strings to regular text before displaying the information. For more information on the view interface mechanism see the SDK Documentation.