Unable to assign zone name to Refrigeration:Case

[Ski90Moo]

Issue overview

Toggling the Zone Name drop down does not update the zone name for Refrigeration:Case object.

Current Behavior

Expected Behavior

Steps to Reproduce

Here is a sample .osm file:
file f1basic dr-badran.osm.txt

Possible Solution

Details

If another thermal zone is added to the project, one can toggle the drop down, select the other thermal zone, then toggle the drop down again and select the correct thermal zone to get OpenStudio to write to the .osm file.

Environment

Some additional details about your environment for this issue (if relevant):

• Platform (Operating system, version): Windows 11
• Version of OpenStudioApplication (if using an intermediate build, include SHA):
  

Context

[macumber]

I think this is an odd case of the Thermal Zone name being treated as "defaulted" when there is only one Thermal Zone in the model because the field is required. If you add another Thermal Zone to the model are you able to correctly set the Thermal Zone? You could do that and then delete the new, dummy Thermal Zone as a workaround.

[macumber]

I think the thing to do would be to always add the current value to the combo box but show it as in error somehow. Then the user would be forced to change it. In this case, that would mean adding an empty space to the combo box if the field is currently empty even though that is invalid. I'm not sure the best way to show an empty string as invalid.

https://github.com/openstudiocoalition/OpenStudioApplication/blob/develop/src/model_editor/InspectorGadget.cpp#L789

[macumber]

Thinking of something like this in InspectorGadget::layoutComboBox:

  int idx = combo->findText(curVal.c_str(), Qt::MatchFixedString);

  if (-1 == idx) {

    // field is currently set to an invalid value
    idx = 0;
    combo->insertItem(idx, QPixmap(":/images/alert_image.png"), curVal, "Invalid");

[macumber]

The WorkspaceObject code at https://github.com/NREL/OpenStudio/blob/develop/src/utilities/idf/WorkspaceObject.cpp#L491 allows for null handles in object-list fields at the Draft strictness level which is used by OpenStudio Model. Therefore, any object-list field can be set to null in the model.

The RefrigerationCase object has object-list field "Zone Name" which is a required-field. However, the ThermalZone is not a required parameter in the object's constructor https://github.com/NREL/OpenStudio/blob/develop/src/model/RefrigerationCase.hpp#L38. Because model is only valid to draft strictness this is allowed even though the IDD marks the field as required.

FindRequiredObjectLists.rb.txt is a script that can be used to find occurrences of required object-list fields, there are many.

I'm not sure that we want to change the OS IDD, the fields are not required at model time but are required at forward translation or simulation time so it is good if users can see that the field should be populated but is not.

[Ski90Moo]

I think this is an odd case of the Thermal Zone name being treated as "defaulted" when there is only one Thermal Zone in the model because the field is required. If you add another Thermal Zone to the model are you able to correctly set the Thermal Zone? You could do that and then delete the new, dummy Thermal Zone as a workaround.

Yes, this was the workaround that I used.

[Ski90Moo]

Thinking of something like this in InspectorGadget::layoutComboBox:

  int idx = combo->findText(curVal.c_str(), Qt::MatchFixedString);

  if (-1 == idx) {

    // field is currently set to an invalid value
    idx = 0;
    combo->insertItem(idx, QPixmap(":/images/alert_image.png"), curVal, "Invalid");

This sounds like a good solution as long as toggling from "Invalid" to a thermal zone writes the thermal zone to the field.