Visualizing before and after MAC changes in Elevation dialog
This option allows users working on a Rack to display the rack configuration based upon Equipment in open MACs, this allows the user to switch between as built and as planned Rack and Equipment layouts based upon the changes contained in the applied MAC. The Elevation dialog contains several UI elements and controls that enable viewing the list of frozen Equipment objects and partially visualizing objects that are MAC participants.
This capability is enabled as follows:
the Statistics & Analysis panel has a collapsible section -- Show State Before MAC -- which is visible when there is at least one MAC associated with the Rack
the panel section shows:
a list of MACs, with one MAC per row, including the No Mac entry, which exists by default
a color code for each MAC, where the colors are identical to the balloon colors in the 3D view, so user can see which Equipment belongs to which MAC
a Show/hide MAC action button, shown as an eye icon. Clicking on it changes the color of the section header and the icon (as seen in the screenshot below), as well as several other places in the dialog to show the previous or current state of that MAC (see the following points)
the central 3D view panel provides an indication of what Equipment objects are in which MAC by color coding Equipment balloon labels according to the color code in the Statistics panel next to the MAC name
click on the Show/hide MAC action button in the Statistics panel to set that MAC's objects to their previous state (this disables the central 3D view panes). A fully synchronized 3D view of the "before MAC" state is planned for a future version of IRM.
the pre-MAC state is in effect in the Equipment grid and shows Equipment in its previous state, which might mean Frozen, or even non-existent in this Rack. Notice in the screenshot below the Equipment grid lists deleted Equipment instances - the first image represents the "Before MAC state", while the second image represents the "After MAC state":
Since the Elevation Export feature doesn't allow any dynamic control, instead it simply generates the Elevation image twice, once with all frozen clones (pre-MAC objects) and once with all live clones (current objects). In both cases, any Equipment in the Rack/Equipment that isn’t in any MAC is included. These views still use a drawing style similar to the Web Client, i.e. using the same colors for drawing as the Web Client.
