How To Articles > How to View Modbus Data in a Web Browser

How to View Modbus Data in a Web Browser

Open Automation Software Tags can be defined to connect directly to Modbus slave devices or host data to Modbus masters with the built in Modbus Driver Interface which supports communications over ethernet and serial interfaces for Modbus TCP, Modbus RTU, and Modbus ASCII protocols. Once you have connected to your Modbus data, you can use our Web HMI tools to visualize your data in a Web Browser. The Web HMI web interface is based on standard technologies including Javascript, jQuery, JSON, HTML and CSS. This tutorial walks you though downloading and installing OAS, configuring a Modbus driver, configuring tags and building a Web Application for your data.

Step 1. Download and Install the Open Automation Software and Start the OAS Service

If you have not already done so, you will need to download and install the OAS platform. Fully functional trial versions of the software are available for Windows, Windows IoT Core, Linux, Raspberry Pi and Docker on our downloads page.

On Windows run the downloaded Setup.exe file to install one or more of the Open Automation Software features. Select the default Typical installation if you are not sure what features to use or the Custom installation if you want to save disk space on the target system. When prompted agree to the End User License Agreement to continue the installation.

For more detailed instructions and video tutorials, visit the installation guide for your system:
Windows Installation | Linux Installation | Raspberry Pi Installation | Dockers Installation

When the installation is finished the OAS Service Control application will appear. Use this application to start the 4 Services. If this is the first time installing the software it will automatically enter Runtime with an example Tag Configuration.

Step 2. Configure Your Modbus Data Source

First, you will need to open the Configure OAS application from the program group Open Automation Software.

Select Configure >> License from the top menu and verify that Modbus is one of the available Drivers in the lower left of the form. The demo license will have this by default. If you do not see Modbus available, contact support@openautomationsoftware.com to update your license.

Select Configure >> Drivers from the top menu.

Select localhost or the remote service you wish to modify with the Select button to the right of the Network Node list.

The Configure Drivers Screen will appear. Select Modbus from the Driver dropdown box.

Enter a meaningful Driver Interface Name that you will refer to this physical connection when defining Tags with a Modbus Data Source.

Specify the Connection as Ethernet or Serial.

Specify the Modbus Type as Master or Slave. Master will be used when communicating to a Modbus device. Slave will be used when other Modbus masters will be communicating to OAS.

When setting up a Slave interface over Ethernet set the IP Address to the computer IPv4 IP address or network node name if the master is on a remote PC. You can also use 127.0.0.1 or localhost if the Modbus master will be on the same computer.

For more detailed instructions on configuring your Modbus data source, click here to see our Getting Started Modbus tutorial or watch the video tutorial below:

Step 3. Configure Your Tags

OAS provides multiple ways to add and define tags:

Manually add and define Tags using the Configure OAS application. …learn more…
CSV Import and Export …learn more…
Programatically …learn more…
One Click Allen Bradley …learn more…
One Click OPC …learn more…

To add a Tag manually:

In the OAS Configure Application, select Configure >> Tags from the top menu.

Select localhost or the remote service you wish to modify with the Select button to the right of the Network Node list.

Click on the Add Tag button located at the top of the Tag browser on the left portion of the screen.

A dialog box will appear. Enter a name for your new tag and click ok.

A configuration screen will appear for your new tag. Select your data source type in in the Data Source dropdown box.

Specify the correct data type in the Data Type dropdown box.

Click Apply Changes at the bottom right of the window.

For more detailed instructions on configuring your tags, click here to see our Getting Started Tags tutorial.

Step 4. View in Web Browser

Configure Web Services on OAS

Open the OAS Configuration application and select Configure > Options, then select the network node (localhost if working on the local machine) and click Select. Under the Networking tab, locate the field for REST API/WebHMI Port Number. The default is 58725 but can be changed. If you are accessing the server from a remote client, you will also need to make sure your machine and/or company firewalls allow TCP traffic on the selected port. If you are using SSL we suggest using a different port number such as 58726 to avoid port conflicts. You can find more detailed information in our knowledge base article Configuring OAS Web Services.

OAS Web interfaces are provided for use by both experienced developers and novice users. Use the Web HMI Dashboard to first test the interface to your live data. If you are experienced with HTML and CSS see Code for Developers section after the following HMI Dashboard no code solution.

HMI Dashboard – No Code

View the following video demonstrating the Web HMI Dashboard.

00:00 – Introduction
00:08 – What’s Web HMI Dashboard
00:20 – Features of a WEB HMI Dashboard
00:23 – Secure Login
00:31 – Modular Design
00:37 – Configurable
00:44 – Customizable
00:49 – Lightweight
01:05 – Demo
01:33 – Alarm Dashboard
01:39 – Trend Dashboard
01:55 – Add a Dashboard
02:04 – Add a Module
02:59 – Built-in Modules
03:04 – Numeric Tag Module Configuration
03:59 – Add another numeric tag module / rewrite module
04:53 – Boolean Tag Module
05:00 – Boolean Tag Configuration
05:56 – Display Multiple Tags with real time values
06:04 – Tag Data Module Configuration
07:09 – Alarms Module
07:17 – Alarms Module Configuration
08:21 – Trends Module
08:28 – Configuration
10:28 – Custom Module
10:34 – Configuration
11:16 – Demo Module
11:43 – Getting Started
11:47 – Application Set up
12:00 – Open Service Control
12:58 – Open OAS Configuration App
13:20 – Static Files
13:35 – Configuration
14:46 – Removing a Module
16:25 – Deploying to IIS
18:41 – Conclusion

Open a browser to the Web HMI Dashboard at the following address:

http(s)://<server>:<port>/app/home

For example, if you are on the same machine as the OAS Service installation, you are not using SSL, and you are using the default port, the URL will be:

http://localhost:58725/app/home

Once presented with the Web HMI Dashboard login screen, enter in an OAS server credential, or leave blank to use the default server credential and click “Sign In“.

Upon successfully logging in, you will be presented with your personalized Web HMI Dashboard. If the application is in Demo Mode, you will be provided with some demo dashboards and you will see live data flowing into each module. All modifications to your dashboard will be saved within your login and remembered for your next session.

Additional Configuration Settings

By default, the Web HMI Dashboard will run in Demo Mode which will do the following:

All logins no matter the credentials, will be allowed to log into the application and be provided individual dashboard settings
New logins will be pre-populated with demo dashboards

To alter any application configurations, locate the Web HMI Dashboard directory located in the installation directory for Open Automation Software. This is typically in C:\Program Files\Open Automation Software\OAS. The Dashboard directory is labeled “www“.

Within this directory, look in the “js” directory and locate the file app_config.js. This is a JSON file containing application settings.

oas_url : optional hard-coded URL of the OAS server location. Omit this setting and the application will assume the server:port used to connect to the app
show_login_url : <true | false> determines if the OAS url can be supplied by the user in the login screen to point the application to a specific OAS service
session_timeout : <integer> number of minutes of inactivity before the user session is ended and the login screen is displayed
demo_mode : <true | false> enables or disables demo mode
demo_dashboards : a JSON representation of the demo dashboards pre-populated for new users in demo_mode

Code for Developers

Create a Project Directory and Copy External Libraries

Create a project directory. (Example C:\myWebHMI). Then copy the following files from your OAS installation directory (Likely: C:\Program Files\Open Automation Software\OAS\HTML_HMI) into the appropriate directories:

js/lib/jquery-1.8.3.min.js
js/lib/json2.js
js/opc-lib-min.js
css/opc-style.css

You can use any version of jQuery as long as it is v1.8 or greater, and the json2 library is only necessary for older browsers such as IE 8.

Enter Basic HTML Code

Open/create a new text document and add the following minimum code:

<!DOCTYPE html>
     <head>
          <script type="text/javascript" src="js/opc-lib-min.js"></script>
          <script type="text/javascript" src="js/lib/json2.js"></script>
          <link rel="stylesheet" stype="text/css" href="css/opc-style.css"/>
          <script type="text/javascript">
               OPC_config = { token:'7e61b230-481d-4551-b24b-ba9046e3d8f2',
               serverURL: 'http://localhost:58725' }; 
          </script> 
     </head> 
     <body>
     </body>
</html>

Change the serverURL in the script tag above to the IP Address, Network Node Name, or registered domain name of the Linux or Windows devices where the OAS Engine is located.

HTML to Display Tag Data

In the body add the following code to display the Ramp tag value, Pump tag value and a button to toggle the Pump Tag:

<div>Ramp Value = <label id="txt1" opc-tag-txt='{"tag":"Ramp.Value","config":{"formats":{"bad_q":"?????","float":"0.0"}}}' ></label></div>
<div>Pump Value = <label id="txt2" opc-tag-txt='{"tag":"Pump.Value","config":{"formats":{"bad_q":"?????"}}}' ></label></div>
<div><button id="tog2" opc-tag-set='{"tag":"Pump.Value","config":{"evt":"click","set":"toggle","set_src":""}}'>Toggle Pump</button></div>

If a tag is in a group, preface it with the group name in your markup. For example: BuildingA.Pump.Value. If the tag is located on a different system than the serverURL or you want to host data from multiple OAS Engines use the Remote Tag Access syntax. You can learn more about that here: Getting Started – Networking.

OAS Web HMI Wizard

If you are not super comfortable with HTML, you can use our Web HMI Wizard to help you create the markup to display your tag data. There is a tutorial about it here: Web HMI Wizard Tutorial.

Save your file. Deploy your application to any web server. This can be IIS on Windows, or any HTTP server on Linux, and even cloud hosting services. To see the results open a browser to the location of your HTML file.

Your final code should look like this:

<!DOCTYPE html>
     <head>
          <script type="text/javascript" src="js/opc-lib-min.js"></script>
          <script type="text/javascript" src="js/lib/json2.js"></script>
          <link rel="stylesheet" stype="text/css" href="css/opc-style.css"/>
          <script type="text/javascript">
               OPC_config = { token:'7e61b230-481d-4551-b24b-ba9046e3d8f2',
               serverURL: 'http://localhost:58725' };
          </script>
     </head>
     <body>
          <div>Ramp Value = <label id="txt1" opc-tag-txt='{"tag":"Ramp.Value","config":{"formats":{"bad_q":"?????","float":"0.0"}}}' ></label></div>
          <div>Pump Value = <label id="txt2" opc-tag-txt='{"tag":"Pump.Value","config":{"formats":{"bad_q":"?????"}}}' ></label></div>
          <div><button id="tog2" opc-tag-set='{"tag":"Pump.Value","config":{"evt":"click","set":"toggle","set_src":""}}'>Toggle Pump</button></div>
     </body>
</html>

Also see:

Knowledge Base