Send Data to Serial Port

This action sends data to a serial port. Use it to communicate with external serial-port devices.

Tip

Make sure the port settings match on both ends – in the configured action and on the serial-port device. Serial port can be used by a single application in the machine. To successfully use the port from this action, no other application may use the port at the same time, not even any printer driver.

About group identifies the selected action.

  • Name: allows you to define a custom action name. This makes actions easily recognizable on the solution's list of actions. By default, the action name is taken from its type.
  • Description: custom information about the action. Enter a description to explain the purpose and role of action in a solution.
  • Action type: read-only information about the selected action type.

Port group defines the serial port.

  • Port name: name of the port to which the external device connects to. This can either be a hardware COM port or a virtual COM port.

Port Settings group defines additional port connection settings.

  • Bits per second: speed rate used by the external device to communicate with the PC. The usual alias used with the setting is "baud rate". Select the value from the drop-down menu.

  • Data bits: number of data bits in each character. 8 data bits are almost universally used in newer devices. Select the value from the drop-down menu.

  • Parity: method of detecting errors in a transmission. The most common parity setting, is "none", with error detection handled by a communication protocol (flow control). Select the value from the drop-down menu.

  • Stop bits: halts the bits sent at the end of every character allowing the receiving signal hardware to detect the end of a character and to resynchronize with the character stream. Electronic devices usually use a single stop bit. Select the value from the drop-down menu.

  • Flow control: serial port may use interface signals to pause and resume the data transmission.

Content group defines the content to be sent to serial port.

Tip

Fixed content, mix of fixed and variable content, or variable content alone are permitted. To enter variable content, click the button with arrow to the right of data area and insert a variable from the list. For more information, see section Combining Values in an Object in Loftware Automation user guide.

  • Data: content to be sent outbound.

Action Execution and Error Handling

Each action can be set as a conditional action. Conditional actions only run when the defined conditions allow them to be run. To define these conditions, click Show execution and error handling options.

Execution options are:

  • Enabled: specifies if the action is enabled or disabled. Only enabled actions will execute. This functionality may be used while testing a form.
  • Condition: defines one-line programming expression that must provide a Boolean value (true or false). When the result of the expression is true, the action will execute. Condition offers a way to avoid executing actions every time.

Error handling options are:

  • Ignore failure: specifies whether an error should be ignored. If enabled, the execution of actions continues even if the current action fails.

    Note

    Nested actions that depend on the current action do not execute in case of a failure. The execution of actions continues with the next action on the same level as the current action. The error is logged but does not break the execution of the action.

    • Example

    At the end of printing, you might want to send the status update to an external application using the HTTP Request action. If the printing action fails, action processing stops. In order to execute the reporting even after the failed print action, the Print Label action must have the option Ignore failure enabled.

  • Save error to variable: allows you to select or create a variable to save the error to. The same cause of the error is also saved to internal variables ActionLastErrorId and ActionLastErrorDesc.