April 2009: Talk was of widgets at the recent ISC West show in Las Vegas.  The S2 Security booth was set up as a large, partitioned v4.0 S2 Enterprise system with a large display of its new widget desktop display software that integrates video, access control, and other security monitoring functions.

Widgets are windows that lie on top of a desktop.  Each window has a special function such as displaying a camera, sorting alarm data, or even displaying content from other systems.  Users can place widgets wherever they like on the display, and interact with them in real time.  For example, a card access might generate a log in an activity log widget at the same time as a photo of the person making the access is displayed in a photo ID widget and the live video is shown by a camera widget.

Users can define multiple widget desktop layouts, and can save and recall them.  Layout defaults can be assigned by operator, so that different people see different views of the system.

Partitioned systems were also featured in NetBox v4.0 software.  Partitions make an S2 NetBox or Enterprise system look like a number of smaller systems.  Each partition has its own database, network nodes, and monitoring.  Special mappings allow operators to manage multiple partitions with a single username and password.  Access level mappings allow access control to operate across partitions, facilitating multiple occupant office spaces, school systems, municipal management systems, and applications.