Instrument Hover Inspector

The Instrument Hover Inspector lets you quickly see and edit how an instrument is used across the algorithm simply by hovering your mouse over it on the P&ID drawing. A floating popup shows every phase that references the instrument, every condition inside the active phase, any interlocks that mention the instrument, and shortcuts to create new transitions or actions that reference the instrument tag — all without opening any dialog or selecting the instrument.

💡 Why use it: Instruments are the most-referenced entity in algorithms. Instead of opening the algorithm editor and hunting for conditions that reference a tag, the inspector surfaces this information at the cursor — and also lets you create conditions already pre-filled with the instrument tag, making it the fastest way to wire an instrument into the algorithm for the first time.

The main popup

Hovering an instrument opens a card anchored to its bullet. The header shows the tag, type, loop number, unit, and phenomena with a coloured accent strip that matches the instrument's current highlight (Orange when the active condition references it in the Condition field, Green in Success Action, Red in Fail Action, Blue in Prompt).

The Steps Timeline shows every phase in the active process. Phases that reference the instrument are tinted with the highest-priority field colour across their conditions; phases that don't are dimmed. A small ×N count badge tells you how many conditions in that phase mention the instrument. Click any phase to make it the active phase — the Conditions list below refreshes to show what's inside.

The Conditions in Step … list renders each condition with compact GRAFCET notation: symbol + description + IF/DO/→/⚡ segments. The coloured dot on each card tells you which field references the instrument. Click the pen icon to open the Condition editor; click anywhere else on the card to make that condition the active one.

If any interlock condition expression mentions the tag, an Interlocks section appears at the bottom with the interlock name, type badge, and the expression text.

Create a Transition to another step

Clicking the blue + button next to Conditions in Step … opens a target-phase flyout. Every phase except the current one is listed. Picking one creates a new Transition inside the current phase with the instrument tag already filled in the Condition field and the chosen phase filled in Success Transition. The Condition editor opens on top so you can refine the expression — when you close it, the drawing regenerates so the new instrument highlight becomes visible immediately.

Create other condition types

Clicking the caret (▾) next to the + opens a menu of the six non-Transition GRAFCET types. Picking any of them creates a new condition of that type in the current phase, with the instrument tag pre-filled in the appropriate field (Success Action for action-only types, Condition otherwise). The Condition editor then opens so you can finish the expression.

Filter out unrelated phases and conditions

The filter icon in the top right of the Steps Timeline toggles whether non-referencing phases and conditions are visible. When the filter is on, only phases that reference this instrument appear in the timeline, and only conditions that reference it appear in the list. The toggle is remembered across sessions.

Works on any instrument, even unused ones

The inspector works for every instrument in the drawing — including instruments that have never been referenced in any condition. For those the popup skips the algorithm scan entirely (it's already known that no condition mentions them) and surfaces just the header and the Steps Timeline with every step shown as empty — and critically the + button still lets you wire the instrument into its very first transition or action in one click.

Settings

The Set Instrument Hover Mode setting controls when the popup appears:

• Disabled — the popup never shows.

• Auto — the popup appears immediately on hover (default).

• Ctrl/Alt + Hover — the popup only appears while you hold Ctrl or Alt; releasing the key hides it.

The Instrument Highlight Line Weight setting controls the lineweight of the bullet circle drawn around a highlighted instrument in the drawing. On new environments it defaults to LineWeight050 so the highlight is visible out of the box — set it to Off to hide the bullets and keep only the colour override.