MODEL APPS category

MODEL APPS overview

The MODEL APPS category contains all the apps that are attached to your model.

Figure 24: MODEL APPS category

You can add apps to a model either by clicking on the New tile, or by importing the apps directly in the model using the Import option of the New tile context menu.

Figure 25: Import app

You can also add apps to a model by clicking on the app tiles in the MY APPS or Simcenter Amesim categories.

Clicking app tiles in the Simcenter Amesim categories will add a model app tile, but will not store a copy of the app file in the model. The app file stored inside the Simcenter Amesim installation folder is used when the model app is launched. If you give a model containing such an app instance to someone else, the app file from their Simcenter Amesim installation folder is used when they launch the model app.

Clicking app tiles in the MY APPS category adds a model app tile and also stores a copy of the app file with the model. The app file from the model folder is used when the model app is launched. If you give a model containing such an app instance to someone else, they will be able to launch the app since the app file is in the model folder. The App space tracks changes to the app files of the MY APPS tiles, and may replace the app files in the model when it detects a change in the app files of the MY APPS source tiles. On closing the model, Simcenter Amesim will ask you to save it in order for the new App files to be stored in the .ame file.

Note

You cannot add application shortcuts to the MODEL APPS category.

Click a tile to launch an App and manage Apps through the contextual menu. From the contextual menu you perform actions on the app such as editing it in the App Designer, adding it to the MY APPS category, changing the name/description/icon and so on.

For apps that are instances of apps from MY APPS categories or the built-in categories, an icon on the tile indicates the status of the link between the app concerned and the reference app.

Figure 26: Linked app status icons

In the above screenshot, we see that 3D scene display is linked to an app from a category, whereas Ship app has a broken link.

The link between the instance of an app in the MODEL APPS category and the reference app is broken as soon as you edit it and make changes in the app files.

App linking

When Apps are added to a model by clicking on the tiles in the MY APPS category, the App space tracks changes to the app file behind the source tiles. If edits are made to the app file of a source tile after the app is attached to a model, the App space will be aware of those edits. A model app tile that displays a small link icon in its top left-hand corner indicates that the App space is tracking changes to the source tile app file.

If the link in the icon is not broken, then the model app file has the same content as the app file of the source tile. We say the model app is “linked” and with “sync enabled” to the source app tile. If the link in the icon is broken, then the model app file has local edits. We say the model app is “linked” but with “sync disabled” to the source app tile. Local edits are what happens when you edit the model app in the App Designer.

Hovering the cursor over the tile of a linked model app will (after a few seconds) highlight the source app tile in the MY APPS or Simcenter Amesim categories.

Figure 27: Highlighting a source app tile

The purpose of this linking mechanism is the following: imagine you have added an app to several models (by clicking on its tile in the MY APPS category). Imagine you now modify this app by editing it in one of the models, and you would like this version of the app to be launched in all models you have added it to. This was previously only possible by manually exporting the modified app file version to a folder, manually deleting the old app file from all other models and finally importing this new app file into them.

Now this can be done much more easily. All you have to do is to use the Apply changes to linked app operation from the contextual menu of the model app tile, and the source app tile will have its app file replaced by a copy of the model app file.

Figure 28: Applying changes to a linked app

When you open other models which contain apps added to them by clicking on this source app tile, the app file in the model is transparently and automatically replaced by the app file behind the source app tile (), so that when you launch the model app you will be launching the new, improved version ( this replacement happens when the link icon of the model app was not in a broken state, which is to say the model app did not already have local changes; model app files with local changes are not replaced to prevent you losing the work you did to make those changes).

If the auto-update behavior of model apps when changes are made to the app file behind the source tiles is not desirable for some of your model apps, you can easily disable it by removing the linking with the Remove link operation in the model apps context menu.

Working with Model Apps

The name, description and icon of model apps created by clicking on app tiles in the MY APPS category can be changed from the App space, or from the App designer (such apps have a copy of the user app file stored in the model):

• changing them from the App space, does not modify the app file embedded in the model; if the app had a link icon that was not broken, the link will remain not broken after the name/icon/description change; this allows users to customize the icons and text descriptions of model app instances in order to make it easier to distinguish between them.

• changing them from the App Designer modifies the app file embedded in the model; if the app had a link icon that was not broken, it will be broken after the changes to the name/icon/description are saved.

Apps added to the model from Simcenter Amesim categories (such apps never store a copy of their app files in the model), have the Open containing directory operation available, which opens in a file manager to the folder where the app file is located inside the Simcenter Amesim installation folder. The Edit operation is not available for them, since no app file is stored in the model.

Apps added to the model from MY APPS category have the Remove link operation available, which removes the tracking of the app file of the MY APPS source tile. The link icon in the top left-hand corner is removed to indicate that this tracking is no longer active.

Using the Add to “My Apps” operation will save a copy of the app file to a user-defined location, will add a tile to the MY APPS category referencing this file copy, and will link the model app tile to the MY APPS app tile.

The link between the instance of an app in the MODEL APPS category and the reference app is broken as soon as you edit it and make changes to the app files. You can push the changes from the edited model app file to the MY APPS source app file, using the Apply changes to linked app operation available in the contextual menu.

Figure 29: Apply changes to linked app