Snapshots

A snapshot is the complete state of IP-Symcon at a specific point in time. It contains all objects with their properties (e.g. variables with value and presentation, instances with configuration and status, scripts, events, media and links), all variable profiles and templates as well as information about the server, license, special switches, language and time zone.

Clients such as the console, the visualizations, the apps or IPSView load the snapshot once to initialize themselves. Afterwards they follow all changes via the messages of IP-Symcon and apply them to their local state. They receive the messages via the WebSocket interface (see Data exchange) or by polling with IPS_GetSnapshotChanges. For this purpose every message carries a consecutive number, and the snapshot contains the number of the last message already included in it under timestamp. Visualizations use a snapshot that is filtered to their contents.

With IPS_GetSnapshotDiff a client that already has a snapshot can retrieve only the differences instead of the complete snapshot.