Port Description - Multiple Ports Window

This window appears when you select multiple ports and click Describe in the Port Settings window. It offers basic and advanced options for describing the selected ports. To choose the set of options you want, select Basic or Advanced from the list at the top of the window. Then use the instructions for the choice you made.

Basic Options

These options let you create a two-part descriptiona fixed word or phrase that will appear in every description, followed by a number or letter that is incremented in each successive description.

Follow these steps:

  1. In the Fixed Text field, enter the text that will be repeated in every port description.
  2. In the Increment field, enter a number or a letter. It will appear in the description of the first selected port. If you enter a number, it will be incremented by 1 in the description of each subsequent port. If you enter a letter, it will be incremented to the next letter in alphabetic order in the description of each subsequent port.
    Example: If you enter Room in the Fixed Text field and 100 in the Increment field, the first port you selected will have the description Room 100, the second will have the description Room 101, and so on.
    Note: If you need to create compound incrementsfor example, 103-4Byou need the advanced options.
  3. Click OK to enter your descriptions in the Port Settings window.

Advanced Options

These options give you more levels of incrementation than the basic options offer. Instead of creating descriptions like Room 100, Room 101, Room 102,... Room 120, you can create multilevel descriptions like Room 100-1A, Room 100-1B, Room 100-1C,... Room 300-5E. In this example, the room number has three parts, each of which is separately incremented.

Follow these steps:

  1. In the Fixed Text field, enter the text that will be repeated in every port description.
  2. Use the entry fields in the First Level box as appropriate:
    1. In the Connector field, enter a character that will precede the left-most value that you want to increment. (A first-level connector is generally not used.)
    2. In the Min field, enter the beginning left-most value (100 in the example) that you want to increment.
    3. In the Max field, enter the highest value that the min value can be incremented to. You can leave this field blank if you do not want a limit on incrementing the min value.
    4. In the Increment field, enter the increment to be used each time the min value is increased.
  3. Use the entry fields in the Second Level box as appropriate:
    1. In the Connector field, enter a character that will precede the middle value that you want to increment.
    2. In the Min field, enter the beginning middle value (1 in the example) that you want to increment.
    3. In the Max field, enter the highest value that the min value can be incremented to. You can leave this field blank if you do not want a limit on incrementing the min value.
    4. In the Increment field, enter the increment to be used each time the min value is increased.
  4. Use the entry fields in the Third Level box as appropriate:
    1. In the Connector field, enter a character that will precede the middle value that you want to increment. (None is used in the example.)
    2. In the Min field, enter the beginning right-most value (A in the example) that you want to increment.
    3. In the Max field, enter the highest value that the min value can be incremented to.
    4. In the Increment field, enter the increment to be used each time the min value is increased.
      If the min value is a letter, the increment shows how many letters to skip in ascending alphabetic sequence. If the increment is 1, no letters are skipped; if it is 2, the increments from A would be C, E, G, and so on.
  5. Click OK to enter your descriptions in the Port Settings window.

Notes: