The Bug
In Aveva InTouch, when you create a new window with a hyphen (-) in the name, InTouch silently converts the hyphen to an underscore (_). However, older existing windows that were created with hyphens in previous versions of InTouch retain their hyphenated names and continue to work.
Why This Matters
If your naming convention uses hyphens (e.g., PMP-001-DETAIL), newly created windows will end up named PMP_001_DETAIL — breaking the convention and causing confusion. Worse, if scripts or navigation buttons reference the hyphenated name, the window will not open because the actual name uses underscores.
Impact
- Navigation scripts fail silently. A
Show "PMP-001-DETAIL"script command will not find a window namedPMP_001_DETAIL. - Inconsistent naming between old and new windows makes the application harder to maintain.
- Window replacement — if you delete an old hyphenated window and recreate it, the new version will have underscores. Any references to the old name break.
Workaround
- Accept underscores as the standard going forward. Update your naming convention to use underscores instead of hyphens for all new development.
- When replacing old windows, update all script references to use the new underscore-based name.
- Do a global search in your InTouch scripts for hyphenated window names to identify potential breakages before they happen.
- Document this behavior in your project standards so other developers are not surprised by it.