Questions

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Is this a graphical programming environment?

No. Scada Studio builds the panels and the logic around them - pages, bindings, block diagrams and message flows - and talks to the equipment through the agent. A diagram has what a classic block diagram has at its core: typed terminals, one value per wire, loops as frames, feedback between iterations, a case structure, subdiagrams called as nodes, records bundled and unbundled, 60 node types; it does not have a connector pane you draw, the file formats of other tools or a compiler, and it runs interpreted in a browser or in the agent's Node.js process. Engineers who know graphical dataflow tools will find the same instruments (waveform graphs, Bode and polar plots, controls with the same events) and the same habits (a request is confirmed by the read-back); they will not find their tool's own language, or its compiler.

Does it look like the graphical dataflow tools engineers know?

The panel has the classic controls palette - Numeric, Boolean, String, Graph - with owned labels and a Bench theme (the grey panel, flat controls, LEDs, a Stop button); the diagram is drawn as a block diagram is - function icons, terminal boxes with DBL and TF, typed wires at right angles, loop frames with N, i, auto-indexing and the stop terminal, a Case with its selector - and the two sides are Panel and Diagram, so an engineer who knows graphical dataflow reads it at once. The icons are Scada Studio's own, and there is no dark block diagram in graphical dataflow: the dark theme here is ours.

What does it need?

A browser and a folder of static files for the designer; Node.js 18 or later for the agent. No database, no cloud, no account. The optional serialport and koffi packages add native serial ports and the VISA and DAQmx libraries.

Where is my data?

On your machines. The project is in the browser's storage and in the file you export; the agent keeps the published apps and the logs in folders next to its configuration. Nothing is sent anywhere unless a flow is told to (an HTTP request or Notify node).

Does it run without a browser?

The agent does: sources, the diagrams marked for it, logs, alarms. A browser is needed to see a panel and to run browser-side diagrams.

Which equipment?

Any OPC UA server; anything Modbus TCP or RTU; a Siemens S7-300, 400, 1200 or 1500; an Allen-Bradley ControlLogix, CompactLogix or Micro800 over EtherNet/IP; an MQTT broker; an HTTP endpoint; any instrument speaking SCPI over a raw socket, a serial line or VXI-11; USB, GPIB and HiSLIP instruments through the VISA library; DAQmx devices through its library; a simulator for the desk. The source reference is exact.