Valve Hover Inspector | AseptSoft Documentation

The Valve Hover Inspector lets you quickly inspect and interact with Engineering Items directly on the P&ID drawing by simply hovering your mouse over them. A floating popup appears showing the item's current state, all available states, the item's behavior across process steps, Equipment Module memberships, and a description line — all without opening any dialog or selecting the item.

💡 Why use it: During design review or process configuration, you often need to check Engineering Item states across steps, adjust a percentage, or quickly switch states. The hover inspector eliminates the need to open editors — just point at an item and interact immediately.

⚙️ Setting up valve hover popups

https://downloads.aseptsoft.ch/documentation/images/Valve-Hover-Inspector/valve-hover-settings.png

Valve hover popups are configured from a dedicated Valve Hover Popups window, reached through AseptSoft Settings → Interactive Hover → Valve Hover Popups. The window has two parts: a mode picker that decides when a popup appears, and an exclusion list that decides which valve types stay quiet.

The top of the window offers three selectable mode cards. Click a card to choose it; the selected card shows a purple accent border and a check mark.

Mode	Behavior	Best For
🚫 Off	Valve popups never appear.	When you need a distraction-free drawing environment.
✅ Always on hover	A popup appears immediately whenever you hover over a valve.	Active design sessions where you frequently inspect valves.
⌨️ Ctrl + Hover	A popup appears only while you hold Ctrl or Alt as you hover.	Review sessions where you want popups on demand, not constantly.

💡 Recommendation: Use Always on hover during active process configuration. Switch to Ctrl + Hover when navigating a busy drawing without needing constant item info.

Silencing specific valve types

Even with popups turned on, some valve usages — simple fittings, check valves, and other items you rarely inspect — only add noise. The Excluded valve types checklist lets you carve those out: any usage type you check there never shows a popup, regardless of the mode above, while every other valve keeps behaving normally.

Open AseptSoft Settings → Interactive Hover → Valve Hover Popups.
Pick a popup mode at the top.
In Excluded valve types, tick the usage types you want to keep silent (for example, plain hand valves or fittings).
Click Save.

The exclusion list greys out while the mode is set to Off (there is nothing to filter when no popup shows), but your selection is kept and reappears the moment you re-enable a mode. A usage type you excluded in the past is always preserved in the list even if it is no longer present in the current drawing, so a saved choice is never silently dropped.

🤫 Silenced during AutoCAD commands

Hover popups never appear while AutoCAD is busy with a command or prompt — picking points, selecting entities, typing keywords, or any other interactive operation. Whatever popup happens to be visible when you start a command closes itself immediately, and no new popups open until AutoCAD returns to its normal idle state. The cursor and the command line stay free of distractions during real drafting work.

The Ctrl/Alt modifier still works normally once AutoCAD is idle again.

🔵 Bullet Overlay

When the hover inspector is active (in Always on hover or Ctrl + Hover mode), you can see small colored circles at each Engineering Item's position on the drawing. These bullets give you a bird's-eye view of all item states:

Bullet Color	Meaning
🟢 Colored (matches state)	Item has an active state assigned — the color corresponds to the state color.
⚪ Gray	Item has no state assigned in the current step.

The bullets appear as a subtle overlay on the drawing and help you quickly locate items before hovering over them.

When you hover over an Engineering Item, a floating panel appears with several sections:

Element	Description
Grip handle	A small grip mark at the far left of the header. Drag it to reposition the popup (see Repositioning a popup below).
Item name	The item's tag/identifier (e.g., "XV-101", "CV-202").
Description line	Free-form description right under the tag — italic editable text when present, faint + Add description placeholder when not. See Descriptions for the four-scope authoring story.
State indicator	A colored dot showing the current state color.
State name	The name of the active state (e.g., "Open", "Closed", "Running").
Percentage	If the state is percentual, shows the current opening percentage (e.g., "75%").
Flow badge	A green FLOW badge if fluid passes through, or a red BLOCK badge if fluid is blocked.
Control-valve marker	A small slider-icon marker for valves (see Marking a valve as a control valve below).

Click the description line to enter edit mode, type, then:

Action	Effect
Enter	Save and return to read mode.
Esc	Cancel without saving.
Click outside the popup	Save automatically. Half-typed descriptions are never lost just because the popup closed.
Right-click the description line	Jump to the Descriptions Overview window with this entity already selected.

🎨 States Gallery

A grid of clickable state buttons, one for each state compatible with this Engineering Item's type. Each button is colored to match the state's assigned color.

Action	What Happens
Click a state	Immediately applies that state to the item in the current step — the drawing updates in real time.
Click "None"	Removes the state assignment, returning the item to its unassigned state. "None" always sits at the end of the gallery.
Click a percentual state	A slider appears, letting you set the exact opening percentage (0–100%) with 10% steps.

💡 Quick state assignment: Instead of opening the status editor or navigating menus, just hover over an Engineering Item and click the desired state. This is the fastest way to configure states during process design.

🔍 Sorting and searching the gallery

Valves with a rich state vocabulary can carry many states. Two controls keep the gallery manageable:

Control	What it does
Sort chip (Name / Colour)	Toggles the gallery order. Name lists states alphabetically; Colour arranges them as a colour wheel — bright before dark, with greys grouped together — so you can spot a state by its hue. Your choice is remembered.
Search box	Appears when a valve has enough states to be worth filtering. Type any part of a state name and the gallery narrows live with every keystroke.

⭐ Most Used row

Below the gallery, a Most Used row surfaces the states you have applied most recently — up to five, limited to the ones this valve actually supports. It appears only on valves with a large set of states, where one-click recall of your frequent picks saves the most scrolling. Every time you apply a state (from the gallery or from Most Used), it moves to the front of this list, so your working set stays at your fingertips even as you move between valves.

🎚️ Marking a valve as a control valve

For valves, a small slider-icon marker in the header tells you — and lets you control — whether the valve is treated as a control valve (a modulating valve such as CV-202, as opposed to a simple on/off isolation valve). The marker has three states, each with its own colour so you can read the situation at a glance:

Marker	Meaning	Can you click it?
🟠 Native (orange)	The drawing's own class data already classifies this valve as a control valve. This is purely informational.	No — there is nothing to override.
🔵 Forced (blue)	You have manually marked this valve as a control valve. Click again to revert.	Yes — click to remove your override.
⚪ Off (grey)	The valve is not a control valve and you have not overridden it. Click to force it on.	Yes — click to force it on.

The orange Native marker is intentionally read-only: when the drawing already calls a valve a control valve, there is nothing for you to toggle. The override you apply (blue) is saved with the valve like any other attribute, so it survives closing and reopening the drawing. Any highlighting that distinguishes control valves from ordinary controlled valves updates instantly when you flip the marker.

🧮 Attributes in this step

When the active state on this valve carries custom attribute keys (e.g. Open delay and Closed delay for a Pulsating state), an Attributes in this step section appears with one editable field per key.

Action	Effect
Type a value, press Enter	The value is saved against this (valve × step × state) cell. Any highlighter that references the matching attribute key refreshes immediately.
Switch step	The fields refresh to show the new step's values for the same valve and state.

📊 Steps Timeline (Phase Strip)

A horizontal strip showing the item's state across all steps in the active process.

Element	Description
Step cells	Each cell shows the step name (abbreviated), the state color, and the state abbreviation.
Active step	Highlighted with a blue border.
Change indicator	A small amber triangle appears when the item's state changed compared to the previous step.
Click a step	Switches the active step and refreshes the popup to show that step's state.

💡 Step navigation: Use the phase strip to quickly scan how an Engineering Item behaves throughout the entire process. Click any step to jump there instantly — no need to use the process navigator.

📦 Equipment Module Section

If the item belongs to one or more Equipment Modules, an additional section appears:

Element	Description
Module name	With a colored bullet matching the module.
Select button	Highlights all entities belonging to that Equipment Module on the drawing.
Configuration buttons	Colored buttons for each configuration — click to apply the configuration to all items in the module at once.

⚡ Quick Actions

Button	What It Does
📊 Matrix	Opens the Valve Phase Matrix viewer for a complete grid view of all Engineering Items across all steps.

You can move any hover popup to a spot that suits your layout, and the inspector remembers where you put it.

Press and hold the grip handle at the far left of the popup header.
Drag the popup to a comfortable position relative to the item — for example, off to one side so it never covers neighbouring tags.
Release. The popup snaps its placement so that the corner nearest the item stays glued to it.

The placement is remembered per popup type, so the position you choose for valve popups applies the next time any valve popup appears. Because the corner closest to the item is the anchor, the popup grows away from the item as its content changes — it never creeps over the valve you are inspecting.

On a busy drawing, a popup can sit on top of a valve that is surrounded by a larger entity — a tank, a vessel outline — and moving the cursor toward the popup risks the surrounding entity stealing it. Holding Ctrl (or Alt) locks the popup on the valve you originally pointed at: while the key is held, hovering over other items will not swap the popup. This works in both Always on hover and Ctrl + Hover modes.

Once you reach the popup and your cursor is over it, releasing Ctrl keeps it open so you can actually use it. The popup dismisses itself the moment you move your cursor away from it — so a popup you have finished with disappears immediately rather than lingering.

🏭 Workflow: Reviewing States During a Design Walk-Through

Imagine you're reviewing a CIP process for a pharmaceutical filling line. You need to verify that all Engineering Items are correctly configured across every cleaning step.

Enable the hover inspector in Always on hover mode, and silence any fitting types you never inspect.
Open the process and navigate to the first step (e.g., "Pre-Rinse").
Hover over the first valve — the popup shows its state is "Open" with the green FLOW badge. The steps timeline shows it stays Open through "Caustic Wash", then Closed for "Drain".
Notice an issue — CV-202 should be at 50% during "Final Rinse", not 100%. Click the "Final Rinse" cell in the steps timeline, then click the percentual state button and drag the slider to 50%.
Drag the popup off the line so it stops covering the next valve, then continue down the line — its placement sticks for every valve you hover next.
Find a state fast — on a valve with many states, type into the search box or switch the gallery to Colour order, then click the right state. Your frequent picks collect in the Most Used row for one-click reuse on the next valve.
Spot a valve with no state — its bullet is gray. Hover over it, select "Open" from the states gallery — done.
For a group of valves that should share a configuration, hover over one, then click the Equipment Module configuration button to apply it to all items in the group at once.

💊 Pharma Example: Verifying a Steam-In-Place Sequence

During SIP qualification, you need to confirm that all steam isolation valves open in the correct order:

Step	XV-201 (Steam Inlet)	XV-202 (Condensate Drain)	XV-203 (Vent)
Pre-heat	Open	Open	Closed
Sterilization Hold	Open	Closed	Closed
Cool-down	Closed	Open	Open
Idle	Closed	Closed	Closed

Using the hover inspector, you can hover over XV-201 and immediately see the full step timeline. The amber change indicators help you confirm exactly where state transitions occur. If something looks wrong, click the step and correct the state right there — no need to switch windows.

⚙️ Hover Appearance Settings

Additional settings let you fine-tune the visual behavior of hover bullets and popups. They are accessible from AseptSoft Settings → Interactive Hover.

Setting	Range	Default	Description
Hover Bullet Size	1.0 – 20.0	1.0	Controls the size of the hover detection bullets. The bullet radius is computed from the item's bounding box divided by this value. Higher values produce smaller bullets. A value of 1 means the bullet fills the item's smallest dimension.
Hover Popup Size	0.1 – 1.0	1.0	Scales the hover popup windows (both Engineering Item and OPC popups). A value of 0.1 renders the popup at one-tenth of normal size; 1.0 is full size. Useful for high-density drawings or large monitors where popups feel too intrusive.
Popup Overlap Priority	—	—	When both an Engineering Item popup and an OPC popup are visible simultaneously (overlapping hover areas), the popup with the smaller detection radius is shown on top. This ensures the more precisely targeted popup takes visual priority.

💡 All size changes take effect immediately — no restart or command required. Adjust these values to match your drawing density and monitor setup.

Instrument Hover Inspector — The matching hover popup for instruments.
Engineering Item — Engineering Item properties and state assignment.
State — State definitions, Highlightable flag, custom in-phase attributes.
Descriptions — How descriptions are authored across four scopes.
Highlighters — How state-driven highlights pick up the values you edit in the popup.
Valve Phase Matrix — Complete grid view of all Engineering Item states.
Equipment Module — Item grouping and configurations.
Process Design - Processes and Steps — Process steps where states are assigned.

⚙️ Setting up valve hover popups

Choosing a popup mode