Messages View Top Toolbar

The toolbar located along the top of Messages view is shown in Figure 1.


Figure 1: The toolbar along the top of Messages view has many features.

Refer to Table 1 for details on the various toolbar selections.

Table 1: Messages View Top Toolbar Selections

Toolbar Selection Description Hotkey
Scroll button Selects scrolling or static display mode.

  • ON (scrolling mode) - see message traffic as it appears on the bus with the most recent message at the bottom.


  • OFF (static mode) - see a stationary list of messages with changing data bytes. All messages that have been detected at least once are listed.
    		•  F3 then M
    Details button Opens a Details for "Message" area to help decode unknown signals in messages.
    		none
    Expand checkbox Shows data from multi-frame messages more clearly, like USDT or J1939. Works only in static display mode.

  • ON - data bytes from a multi-frame message are shown in an expanded block added below its message.


  • OFF - data bytes are shown only in the same row as the message.
    		•  none
    Reverse Engineering button Opens a menu with many features to help reverse engineer unknown messages and signals. none
    Time Abs button Shows relative or absolute timestamps. Works in scrolling and static display modes.

  • ON (absolute time) - time from Vehicle Spy start until that message was received.


  • OFF (relative time) - time between this message and the previous one.
    		•  F3 then A
    Pause button Pauses the message display. Works in scrolling and static display modes.

  • ON - display is paused.


  • OFF - display is not paused.
    		•  F3 then spacebar
    Save button Saves the message buffer to a file. F3 then S
    Erase button Erases the message buffer and clears any suppression of activity highlighting. F3 then C
    New Form button Opens more Messages views that operate independently from each other. A powerful feature that lets you dedicate each view to one network or ECU for example. none
    Find Prev, Find Next, and search field Finds text entered in the search field. Find Next looks for the next instance while Find Prev looks for matches earlier in the traffic. none
    Search Location dropdown Sets which Messages view column to search in. none
    Go To Line field & button This will put the desired line number at the top of the Messages view. This works only while paused in scrolling mode or while using Review Buffer. none

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