What's in the Retriever 12.0 Patch?

Note: Retriever is built on top of the Simulator Product Line.  As a result, changes made to Simulator will affect Retriever as well.  For a list of changes made to Simulator 12 see the Simulator 12.0 patch description.  The changes listed below are of particular important to Retriever.

PowerWorld Retriever 12.0 Patch addresses any problems found in Retriever 12.0 following its official release in June 2006.  New features are also added in the patch as appropriate.  

The patch website for Retriever was first created on June 26, 2006.

The Retriever patch was last updated December 5, 2007.

Click here to go to the patch download page.

New Features/Minor Improvements:

• (June 26, 2006) Modified the screen drawing when in Real-Time mode to greatly speed up the refresh.  This results in much faster animation as a result.
• (July 10, 2006) Modified the SQL retrieval so that we maintain server side cursors when performing data retrievals.
• (July 10, 2006) Modified to make nominal voltages of transmission lines available in real-time mode.
• (July 10, 2006) When saving the Retriever Configuration AUX file to a file marked as read-only a file I/O Error 103 appeared. A better error message was added.
• (July 10, 2006) Modified the upload function when using HTTP to use a Put() call instead of Post().
• (August 7, 2006) Modified the Area, Zone, and Substations objects average/min/max/std of MW Marg. Cost calculation so that they are determined dynamically from the Bus data. Previously they were calculated only after solving the OPF, which made it so that user-entered bus data could not be used for these dynamically calculated values.
• (August 24, 2006) Add new object regarding Bad Quality Codes in a datasource. There is now an option called "Match Whole Error Codes Only" which is checked by default. Uncheck this box if you would like to specify that "X" or "Y" are error codes and you desire that "XY" be treated as a bad quality.
• (September 19, 2006) Added a Retriever option to delete log files older than a certain number of days.
• (October 11, 2006) Added the ability to modify the oneline hints to change the time delay at which the hint will appear and then disappear, the maximum pixel width of the hint, and the font attributes (size, name, and style) of the hint.
• (October 30, 2006) Added the ability to rotate through onelines specified in the keyboard shortcuts in a "slideshow". To cancel the slide show just press the ESC key.
• (October 30, 2006) Modified the Alias Subscription AUX file reader to allow objects to be defined using labels.
• (November 9, 2006) Modified to make the expression field of an alias subscription a non-required field.
• (February 13, 2007) BG Calculated Fields: BGCalcField now is internalized by default, so no configuration is required to make it work in Real-Time mode.
• (February 28, 2007) Added StopAutoRetrieval script command to stop automatically retrieving data.
• (April 20, 2007) In the consolidation routines, we added columns for showing which buses were attributed to each Consolidated Bus.
• (May 29, 2007) Modified features throughout Simulator to allow writing data to an auxiliary file using the object labels. This most often affects the SUBDATA sections for objects such as interfaces, injection groups, or contingency records.
• (June 1, 2007) For Topology Processing, added script action "PopulateFullModel;" which populates the underlying full power flow model with retrieved real-time data.
• (June 1, 2007) For Topology Processing, added script action "InitConsolidatedModel;" which creates an initialized consolidated power flow model by making an identical copy of the full power flow model.
• (June 1, 2007) For Topology Processing, added script action "RunTopologyProcessing;" which takes the initialized consolidated power flow model and performs the consolidation of nodes into buses resulting in the consolidated power flow model.
• (July 11, 2007) For Topology Processing, added script action SaveConsolidatedCase

Bug Fixes:

• (June 26, 2006) Fixed problem when opening Retriever using the remote configuration option to ensure that it properly opens in Real-Time Mode.
• (June 26, 2006) Fixed the Contour Color Key when in Real-Time mode so that the bottom portion of the key is not clipped.
• (September 19, 2006) Modified the dialog for specifying an AUX file data source so that it doesn't show the format options for columns because this is not relavent to the AUX file.
• (September 19, 2006) The HTTP and HTTPS data transfer now automatically use any proxy settings that are configured with the Windows Internet Connection Settings. Previously Retriever did not use any proxy settings.
• (September 19, 2006) Fixed a bug where red bad data circles drawn in contouring were being drawn in strange locations when using the zoomed thumbnail view.
• (September 19, 2006) Fixed a problem where the Retriever log file object wasn't being created properly when the logging directory was one that the user didn't have write rights.
• (September 19, 2006) Fixed error in writing out to the Retriever Control Panel log when uploading files using the new Image Exporter Retriever Add-On.
• (October 11, 2006) Modified how the underlying drawing of emphasis highlighting occurs on oneline diagrams occurs so that the memory footprint of PowerWorld will remain consistent while you are resizing and moving around a set of open onelines. While this results in a larger memory footprint on average it will not change over time and result in memory fragmentation. This is the same as the change made on May 10, 2005 but for the emphasis highlighting
• (October 11, 2006) When using dynamic formatting on a specific oneline diagram, the blinking was not working properly. This is now fixed.
• (October 11, 2006) Added the ability to use the time zone correction for ODBC and Flat Text datasources even when a timestamp column is not specfied. Previously it was only working with the column. It now also applies to the file timestamp and the first line of a textfile data source.
• (October 11, 2006) Fixed the Datasource Dialog so that the spin edit box for time-zone correction works.
• (October 11, 2006) Custom Expressions for Bus objects were not working properly in Real-Time mode. This has been fixed.
• (October 30, 2006) Fixed an error which could result in Emphasis highlighting now working correctly.
• (November 28, 2006) Fixed a problem with the remote access feature of Retriever. Retriever stores the latest file date for the case, configuration, and displays used via the remote access tool. Previously this date was stored in a manner that depended on the Windows Locale settings. This created conflicts. The date is now stored in a non-localized manner.
• (January 25, 2007) For archivable data sources (such as PI or eDNA), updated Retriever to use Windows daylight savings time settings.
• (February 13, 2007) Internalize to Model Field Dialog: Works properly in Real-Time mode now.
• (February 23, 2007) Fixed a bug where subscribed expressions loaded from a version 11 or earlier Retriever data source file were not properly initialized (and therefore initially displayed incorrect values.)

• (February 28, 2007) Fixed the inability to change the “Do Not Solve While Animating” option in the Retriever Options dialog box after having entered Real-Time mode and switched back into Run Mode.

• (March 1, 2007) Fixed a problem with retrieving data from a flat text file if using the "retrieve only if updated" option is chosen.  Previously if the data had not been updated we did not read the file, however the data was not properly marked as up-to-date.

• (March 20, 2007) Fixed a problem where successive uploads to an HTTP server would fail if an upload directory was specified on a line separate from the site specification.

• (March 20, 2007) Forced all authentication to be either none or basic username/password authentication. Secure authentication can be guaranteed using SSL connections.

• (March 26, 2007) When using a Bus Group Calculated Field during Real-Time Mode, if the bus group looks up values that have no valid alias values, then the Bus Group Field should be listed as a blank string.  Prior to this bug fix, the value of 0 (zero) would be returned incorrectly.

• (April 11, 2007) Fixed an error in the calculation of Bus Group Calculated Fields.

• (August 21, 2007) Under rare situation when using the drag-drop alias subscription, the alias chosen was not properly maintained. This occurred in situation where very long alias names had dashes in them.