ITcSysManager

ITcSysManager is the main interface of the TwinCAT Automation Interface. This interface allows basic operations to configure TwinCAT 3 XAE and consists of several methods for doing so. Over the years, the ITcSysManager interface has been extended with more functionalities to give customers a better way to access all Automation Interface features. However, due to restrictions in the COM object model, these features needed to be added as separate interfaces to the Automation Interface. Therefore, each time a new set of features was added, these features were assembled in a new interface which was named ITcSysManagerX, where X is a number which is incremented each time a new interface was added. The following tables explain which methods are part of the ITcSysManager interface and which have been added to each new "feature-set" interface.

Methods

ITcSysManager methods	Description	Available since
NewConfiguration	Generates a new configuration	TwinCAT 2.11
OpenConfiguration	Loads a prior created configuration file (WSM file)	TwinCAT 2.11
SaveConfiguration	Saves the configuration in a file with the given name or with the current name	TwinCAT 2.11
ActivateConfiguration	Activates the configuration (same as "Save To Registry")	TwinCAT 2.11
LookupTreeItem	Looks up to a configuration item (item in the tree) by name and returns a ITcSmTreeItem interface	TwinCAT 2.11
StartRestartTwinCAT	Starts or Restarts the TwinCAT System	TwinCAT 2.11
IsTwinCATStarted	Evaluates if the TwinCAT System is running	TwinCAT 2.11
LinkVariables	Links two variables given by names	TwinCAT 2.11
UnlinkVariables	Clears the link between two variables given by names or all links from one variable.	TwinCAT 2.11

ITcSysManager2 methods	Description	Available since
SetTargetNetId	Set the target NetId of the currently opened TwinCAT configuration.	TwinCAT 2.11
GetTargetNetId	Gets the target NetId of the currently opened TwinCAT configuration.	TwinCAT 2.11
GetLastErrorMessages	Get the last error messages which occurred in the TwinCAT subsystem.	TwinCAT 2.11

ITcSysManager3 methods	Description	Available since
LookupTreeItemById	Looks for a configuration tree item with the specifed Item id.	TwinCAT 2.11
ProduceMappingInfo	Produces a Xml-Description of the actual configuration mappings.	TwinCAT 3.1
ClearMappingInfo	Clears the mapping info.	TwinCAT 2.11

Comments

The ITcSysManager interface contains two methods used for navigating within TwinCAT XAE: ITcSysManager::LookupTreeItem and ITcSysManager3::LookupTreeItemById. A detailed explanation of browsing TwinCAT XAE can be found in the chapter TreeItem Browsing Models.

Warning: The three methods ITcSysManager::NewConfiguration, ITcSysManager::OpenConfiguration and ITcsSysManager::SaveConfiguration are only available in Compatiblity Mode. Calling them in standard mode will throw an E_NOTSUPPORTED Exception.

The ITcSysmanager and the ITcSmTreeItem interface allows full access to a TwinCAT configuration. In the How to... section of this documentation there is a long (but incomplete) list of samples how to manipulate a TwinCAT configuration automatically.

Version information

Requirements

Required TwinCAT version
This interface is supported in TwinCAT 2.11 and above