Designer Launcher

The Designer Launcher makes it extremely easy for you to hit the ground running on your projects. The Designer Launcher locates all Gateways that are available on a local network. Each Designer that is added to the My Designers list represents a shortcut to a particular Gateway, and once that Designer is opened you can access or create new projects on that Gateway. The same Designer can access all the projects that are available on that Gateway, and you don't need to add the Designer multiple times for different Gateways!

Create a Designer Launcher shortcut on your desktop and you can open your Designer, and create or edit a project in a flash!

Login credientials/permissions

If the Designer Launcher locates and adds a Gateway to your list of designers, you must have the right credentials/privileges to login to that particular Designer.

Download and Install

Best Practice

It's good practice to download and install the Designer Launcher every time you install a new release of Ignition. The Designer Launcher is a separate application and is not part of an Ignition release, so it's important not to have an outdated Designer Launcher shortcut residing on your desktop. Each time you install a new version of Ignition, download and install the Designer Launcher, and let the install process create a new desktop shortcut for you automatically.

On this page ...

The Designer Launcher

Watch the Video

Use the following steps to do an install of the Designer Launcher on a Windows operating system from the Home tab of the Gateway Webpage.

From the Gateway Webpage, click the Download button for the Ignition Designer Launcher.
Ignition knows what platform you're running, and will display it on the Download button. The Designer Launcher is available for htese operating system: Windows, Mac OS, or Linux.
Run the downloaded file (DesignerLauncherSetup.exe) found on the lower-left of the window, or go to your Downloads folder and double-click the file to run it.
The Select Additional Tasks window will open. Here, you can select additional tasks that you would like to setup to perform while installing the Designer Launcher. It's a good idea to check the Create a desktop shortcut box so it's easily accessible when you want to open the Designer Launcher. Click Next.
Now, you're Ready to Install the Designer Launcher on your computer. Click Install to continue.
Once the Designer Launcher is installed, complete the setup by checking the box to Launch Designer Launcher and click Finish.
The Ignition Designer Launcher window will open. Here you can select any Designers you have permission to launch. If you are running this for the first time, by default, you will only see one Designer.
Click Launch.
The Designer starts up and the login window is displayed. Enter the credentials for the administrator or user with full privileges for the Designer, and click Login. It should be the same as the login for the Gateway Config section.

Login credentials are set in the Config section of the Gateway Webpage, under Security > Users, Roles.
The Open/Create Project window is displayed giving you two options: create a new project or open an existing one. Enter a project name and then click the Create New Project button.

Configuring the Designer Launcher

Configuring the Designer Launcher is fairly simple. The Designer Launcher finds the Gateways, you add the Gateways to My Designers, and the only thing left to do is create your Designer shortcuts. You can create a shortcut for each Designer, or use the Designer Launcher to display all your Designers. Creating shortcuts makes them readily accessible for opening a Designer quickly. Let's open the Designer Launcher to create a few shortcuts.

If you followed the steps in the previous section for installing the Designer Launcher, then you already have the Designer Launcher shortcut on your desktop which looks like the image below.

If you don't, then go back to the Gateway Webpage and download and install the Designer Launcher again. Follow the wizard instructions as shown in the previous section. Be sure to check the Create a desktop shortcut on the Select Additional Tasks window.
Find the Designer Launcher shortcut on your desktop and click it to open the Designer Launcher window. A list of Designers will be displayed.
Now let's create a shortcut on your desktop for your Designer. You have the option to Create Shortcut, or Launch + Create a Shortcut for that Designer. Click the dropdown box, select Create Shortcut, and a shortcut will be placed on your desktop.
Go to your desktop and click the shortcut to open your Designer. You'll notice that name of your Designer is also the name of the shortcut (i.e., Controller).

Designer Launcher Settings

You have the option of customizing the Designer Launcher Settings.

To access Designer Launcher Settings, click Settings on the top right of any Designer Launcher window.
When the Designer Launcher Settings window opens, you can choose to use the default settings or customize each Designer. When finished, click Save Changes.

Launcher Settings - Configurations for the Launcher
Property Setting	Description	JSON Name
Default Application	When set, the Launcher will attempt to automatically launch the specified Application when running. If left blank/null, an Application will not automatically start	default.application
Logging Level	Level of logging that will be used for the launcher: INFO, TRACE, DEBUG, WARN, and ERROR.	logger.level
Multicast Address	The address that will be used to listen for multicast broadcasts from Gateways.	multicast.address
Multicast Ports	The port that will be used to listen for multicast broadcasts from Gateways.	multicast.receive.port
Auto Exit on Launch	Automatically close the launcher window when a client is started.	autoexit
Application Defaults - Default Configurations for New Applications
Property Setting	Description	JSON Name
Timeout	Maximum number of seconds allowed for any Gateway communication. Any communication that exceeds this amount will cause the client launcher to abort the communication and try again if configured.	timeout
Retries	The number of times a Client will to attempt to contact a gateway again if an error occurred during communication. Available values are: -1 : Retry indefinitely, or until the launcher is manually closed. 0 : Zero retries, or abort after the first failure. 1 (or more): Determines the number of retries: i.e., a value of "5" means five retries.	retries
Initial Heap	Amount of memory to be allocated at startup.	init.heap
Max Heap	Maximum amount of memory allocation for heap size.	max.heap
JVM	Arguments to append to client startup. These should start with a '-D' and be separated by semi-colons.	jvm.arguments
Client TagOverrides	Client Tags and their values that are set when the client launches.	client.tag.overrrides

Action Buttons

There are three different Action buttons in settings in the Vision Client Launcher.

Action Button	Description
Export Launcher Config	Exports all Designer Launcher settings to a json file.
Import Launcher Config	Imports Designer Launcher settings from a json file.
Import Application Config	Imports a Designer configuration from an export json file.

Adding Additional Designers

Adding additional Designers is simple since the Designer Launcher does all the work for you.

With the Designer Launcher open, click the Add Designer button.
The Designer Launcher will browse and list all the available Gateways on your local network as well as someone else's on the same network. Select from any of the available networks and press the Add Selected Gateway button. You can only select and add one Gateway at a time.
If you don't see the Gateway you're looking for, but know the IP address, you can enter it manually. Click the Manually Add Gateway button in the upper right corner and enter the Gateway URL. It will inform you if you have a valid host name. If so, click Add Gateway.
Once it's added, it will appear your My Designers list.

Designer Application Settings Reference

Setting Name	Description
Application Name	The name of the Designer application, as it appears in the launcher.
Timeout	The maximum number of seconds to allow for any gateway communication. Any communication that exceeds this amount will cause the Vision client launcher to abort the communication and try again if configured.
Retries	How many times to attempt to contact a gateway again if an error occurred during communication. Available values are: -1 : Retry indefinitely, or until the launcher is manually closed. 0 : Zero retries, or abort after the first failure. 1 (or more): Determines the number of retries: i.e., a value of "5" means five retries. If the number of retries is exceeded, then the launcher will attempt to launch the Fallback Application.
Initial Heap	The initial heap size (memory) for the client.
Maximum Heap	The maximum heap size (memory) for the client.
JVM Arguments	Additional JVM arguments to add to that specific application if desired. The defaults are created from the global jvm-args that exist at the time of the creation of the application. These can then be modified and the modifications will persist and never be updated again from the global setting.

Self-Signed Certificates

When using a self-signed SSL certificate, the certificates for the gateway must be locally accessible to the client launcher in the following directory:

{user folder}\.ignition\clientlauncher-data\certificates

When a certificate is placed in the directory above, the launcher will attempt to automatically add the certificate(s) to the local keystore upon application launch.

Troubleshooting

If the Designer Launcher fails to launch a designer for some reason, the log file can be found at:

{user folder}\.ignition\clientlauncher-data\designer.log

This log should contain any errors that occurred.

User Manual

GETTING STARTED

MODULES AND PLATFORM

APPENDIX

TUTORIALS & HELPFUL TRICKS

GLOSSARY

STRATEGIC PARTNER LINKS

RESOURCES

ALL MANUAL VERSIONS