At this point in our exercises, LytPractice and DspPractice are not available in the running system because they have not been published. Publishing, a command initiated by users, authorizes graphics configuration and DeltaV Live workstation configuration to be deployed for use online and to all DeltaV Live workstations that should have it. Workstations that are not communicating retrieve published configuration when the workstations begin communicating.
In the Graphics Explorer pane, note the green Publish icon next to Dsp_Practice. This icon indicates that this display has publishable changes pending. Also note that the Displays folder has a similar Publish icon next to it. This icon indicates that the folder contains at least one item with publishable changes pending. The publish indication bubbles up to the top of the hierarchy to facilitate identifying the location of items that need publishing.
Graphics configuration can be published from the ribbon, in context from the item, or from the Quick Access toolbar. Several publishing options are available, including publishing only selected items, publishing all items contained in a folder, or publishing all items with changes pending.
In this exercise, we will publish the configurations we have created.
But what if a display is not ready to be published and you want to be sure that it does not get deployed to the running system before it is ready?
If a new or modified display is not ready to be published, you can set it as a 'work in progress'. If a user attempts to publish a display marked as a work in progress, then in the Publish dialog, the WORK IN PROGRESS column shows Yes for that display, and the display's Publish check box is automatically deselected. The 'work in progress' display, however, can still be published by selecting its Publish check box.
Conversely, if you want to alert another user that a display needs to be published, you can set it as Publish Needed. When a display is marked as Publish Needed, another user can publish it from any workstation in the system.
In this exercise, we will modify DspPractice and then set it as a work in progress.