The AIDA system comes with some utilities, which can be useful in some situations, but which have no extra documentation. So this document gives short description of these tools.

Note: "sym2pli.js" needs AIDA v7.00.004 or newer. In older versions it does not work in Win7 (thanks to MS).

4 AIDA Utilities

4.1 AIDA DB Browser

"AIDA DB Browser" is a AIDA-POOL-Application which allows to inspect various types of files, which are supported and used by the AIDA system. In standard BSK-AIDA-Installation it's integrated in the start menu as "AIDA DB Browser", in Conti-Platform-Manager-AIDA-Installation you must start "dbbrowser.cmdr-cfg" directly or generate a shortcut to "dbbrowser.cmdr-cfg" in start menu by hand, e.g. like this:

• Navigate to your AIDABIN directory, e.g. to "C:\tool\common\AIDA7\platform\AIDA_7\SDK_7.00.004_00".

• Select "dbbrowser.cmdr-cfg", then context menu "Copy", then "Paste shortcut".

• Rename the new shortcut to "AIDA DB Browser".

• Context menu "Cut".

• Navigate to start menu folder, e.g. "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Continental\AIDA Platform\SDK 7.00.004_00", then "Paste".

"AIDA DB Browser" can open DBC files (CAN database description), SYM files (optional with BSK type information) and a special type of ODX files. Besides simply allow to inspect such files this is helpful for development of applications which use the BSK modules to read such files, because the display is near to the used internal data structures.

4.2 AIDA Examples

"AIDA Examples" are a collection of examples to demonstrate various aspects of AIDA-POOL-Applications. Some of them are also useful as very simple tools. In standard BSK-AIDA-Installation they are integrated in the start menu as "AIDA Examples", in Conti-Platform-Manager-AIDA-Installation as "Commander (Examples)". After start you have a menu "Demo" to start the demos. And the sources in AIDAHOME + "examples" may be useful for own applications.

4.2.1 Hex-Translation

AODA-POOL-Application with very simple GUI to demonstrate the use of the HEXIO module, allowing to save HEX files in other formats and in binary, optional with different address etc. One special feature is, that HEX files with gaps are fully supported. After read you get a list of "covered sections", and this list is also used to write a file.

4.2.2 VOBJ-Colours

List and reference of supported standard colours.

4.2.3 VOL-Events

Test program to show what kind of VOL events are generated if the VOL are used. This helps if you program own AIDA-POOL-VOL-Application, because you can directly see what kind of events need to be handled for the different visual objects.

4.2.4 examples\*sim.pool

Simulation of some diagnostic functions of ECUs. Can be uses to test own applications without real ECU, or if you need to simulate errors, which do not occur with real ECU.

4.3 sym2pli.exe

"sym2pli.exe" is the command line tool to generate "*.pli" files from "*.sym" files. It's in the AIDABIN directory and in standard BSK-AIDA-Installation it is found via PATH and via environment variable AIDAHOME or AIDABIN. In Conti-Platform-Manager-AIDA-Installation the program is found relative to scripts directory.

"sym2pli.exe" can be uses in own scripts and is used by the following "sym2pli.js" utility.

Start it in a cmd shell without parameters to see a short help with list of available options.

Main purpose of this program is to allow use of values and addresses from symbol files directly in AIDA-POOL-Applications (e.g. in constant tables or if you need to do compile time calculations), instead of reading the symbol file at runtime with BDSYM module. It's not practical for symbol files which frequently change, because "sym2pli.exe" and recompile of then AIDA-POOL-application would be needed after every change.

4.4 sym2pli.js

"sym2pli.js" is a script with simple GUI to allow to generate the "sym2pli" result as "*.pli" text file and optionally show this text file with notepad. It's in AIDAHOME + "util" directory.

The result is generated with same name but extension ".pli" instead of ".sym" in same directory as the "*.sym".

If you frequently use this tool, create a shortcut in your or in public start menu, e.g. in "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\BSK AIDA" (or "C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Continental\AIDA Platform\SDK 7.00.004_00").

Notes:

• Unfortunately MS has removed the really useful file open dialogues in Win7, so some generic MSHTA dialogue is used, which does not allow to define useful filter ("*.sym") etc. and shows misleading title "Choose File to Upload" (but it's better than nothing).

• Windows UAC may not allow to create start menu links directly. In this case create the link e.g. on your desktop and then copy it to start menu.