Fraction Collector Tray Manager

This program is a user window that resides in the Aria™ OS main program. It is used to designate sample collection vials and trays for use by the Fraction Collector Instrument.

  • Created using LabVIEW 8.20
  • Used to select vials and trays for sample collection during sample execution
  • Contains a numeric entry field and a graphical interface to select vials

Purpose and Features

The Fraction Collector Tray Manager was specified to provide an interface for the lab scientist to view and select the trays and vials to be used for fraction collections during sample execution. The primary functions required were to:

  • Provide an interface to select trays and vials for fraction collections

The following features were programmed in addition to the basic requirements to aid in collecting fractions:

  • Automatic tray updating that determines the tray configuration of the instrument and displays appropriate tray diagrams
  • Collection Style control that gives the user the option of how the instrument moves through the vials
  • Graphical interface to click-and-drag over areas of the tray diagram for quick vial selection

Fraction Collector Tray Manager
Screenshot of the Fraction Collector Tray Manager (Image provided by permission of Cohesive Technologies®)

Program Details

The following sections contain some more detailed information about the features of the Fraction Collector Tray Manager window.

Tray Type display of tray with different number of vials and orientationTray Selection

The Tray Selection control is a drop-down menu that is populated with the fraction collector instrument's current tray names. Selecting a tray automatically updates the graphical display to the tray's vial configuration and orientation (note that the numbering and lettering of the vials in this image are transposed due to this particular tray type's orientation).

Collection Style

The Collection Style control is a drop-down menu that contains four options—Serpentine by Row, Row by Row, Serpentine by Column, and Column by Column. These collection styles describe the method in which the instrument weaves through the collection trays for all the collections. This feature allows the user to customize the order in which collections are made, thus simplifying matching during post-processing.

Vial Ranges

The Vial Ranges section was adapted to make sample selection simple, even if not using the graphical interface. The features include:

  • An 'All' radio button, that automatically selects all valid samples in range
  • A 'Ranges' radio button, that allows the user to manually numeric ranges
  • The numeric field that automatically sorts itself to properly display numeric user entries

Selecting vials using the graphical interfaceGraphical Interface

The Graphical Interface lets the user select vials for collection by clicking-and-dragging across desired areas. Some of the features of this interface include:

  • Automatic adapts to the tray's vial number, configuration, and orientation for accurate representation
  • Clicking on a single vials selects vials individually
  • Clicking-and-dragging selects all vials in region
  • Click-and-drag trace shows current selection as user is moving the cursor, and snaps to the grid created by the vials
  • Pressing Shift key while selecting vials lets user remove vials from selection
  • Right-clicking on a vial displays vial number