FSETools Documentation

Introduction

FSEToolsGUI is a graphical user interface application designed for carrying out calculations/assessments that are commonly used in Fire Safety Engineering. Most of the tools are based on contemporary guidance documents (e.g. ADB, BS 9999, BS 7974 etc). Users are expected to have a thorough understanding of the methodologies behind these tools.

Main Window Layout

A good picture worth thousands words.

Fig. 1 A sketch of the main window layout of FSETools

Table 1 Main UI components

Component	Description
Frame	The topmost bar of the main window housing title and min/max/exit buttons.
Menu Bar	A horizontally oriented menu bar housing all options in form of dropdown menus.
Side Menu	A vertically oriented tree menu housing shortcut for activating useful tools (also see Calculation Node Layout).
Viewport	A viewport area allows the users to see calculation inputs and outputs etc. Can be toggled visible/hidden by View -> Side Menu.
Console	A command-line style area to display various information, e.g. calculation errors/warnings etc. Can be toggled visible/hidden by View -> Console.
Status Bar	The bottom bar of the main window. The last line in the Console will be displayed on this bar for 5 seconds. Version info, viewport location and zoom are displayed on the right end (click these text to reveal extra info/options).

Calculation Node Layout

Most of the calculation modules hosted within the Side Menu (see Fig. 1) share a common layout as per Fig. 2 for consistency.

Fig. 2 A sketch of Calculation Node common layout

Keyboard Shortcuts

Table 2 Keyboard shortcuts

Shortcut	Effect
Ctrl + A	Select all items
Ctrl + C	Copy selected item(s)
Ctrl + V	Paste copied item(s)
Del	Delete selected item(s)
Ctrl + O	Open a saved file
Ctrl + S	Save current scene to a file
Ctrl + Shift + S	To save current scene to a new file
R	To create a Room node. Requires B101 License.
D	To create a Door node. Requires B101 License.
E	To create an Exit node. Requires B101 License.
S	To create a Stair node. Requires B101 License.
X	To create a X node. Requires B101 License.
Ctrl + Shift + R	To toggle b101 visualisation. Requires B101 License.
Ctrl + R	To update b101 flow (also switch on visualisation). Requires B101 License.

Mouse Action and Effect

Note

Most items in Table 3 works only when Viewport is focused. Click any blank area in Viewport to gain focus.

Table 3 Mouse actions

Action	Effect
Left button press	To select a single item
Left button hold + move	To select multiple items
Right button press	To call context menu depending upon selection
Middle button hold + move	Move viewport

B101 License

New in version 0.1.2.

B101 is still a work in progress and therefore supplied with limited access. Contact Ian if you are interested in testing B101 (a 30 minutes training is required for new starters as lack of proper documentation). Follow the steps below to obtain and install a B101 license file:

1. Click Help -> About to get the specification data displayed in Console, formatted as per below.

   About FSETools:
   FSETools 0.1.1 202112312253
   Expires in 364 day(s), 2 hour(s) and 9 minute(s)
   UID 00000000-0000-0000-0000-XXXXXXXXXXXX
   Root C:\Program Files (x86)\FSETOOLSGUI
   

2. Send this information (particularly version and UID) to Ian to request a licence file (named b101.fselic and do not change this file name).

3. First save the license file b101.fselic to an accessible folder (e.g., Desktop or Downloads). Then move the file to the root folder (shown in Step 1). This may require administrator access.

Upon completion of the steps above, click View -> B101 Toolbar (or press Ctrl+Shift+Alt+B) to show/activate B101 Toolbar as shown in Fig. 3 (press again to hide/deactivate). B101 features are only accessible when the toolbar is visible (as well as the keyboard shortcuts in Table 2).

Fig. 3 B101 Toolbar

Note

A license file is version and machine dependent, meaning that upgrading FSETools to a different version or running the software on a different machine will require a new license file.

Installation

Download and execute installer.

You may see a pop-up dialog window asking to uninstall previous versions (if exist). After pressed the Yes button, wait 10 seconds before move onto the next step for the uninstallation to complete.

Click Next to start installation then wait for the installation progress to complete.

Installation complete, click Finish to close the installer.

The application should be able to run.

Update

To check for updates, simply click the version label located at the bottom right corner of the main window as per Fig. 4.

Fig. 4 Check for Updates