2. The Component Network

Computer Network Components are all things that can be connected to the computer component network and be discovered by it.

Every such component has two major properties you want to be aware of.

The first is the component id. This is a UUID that identifies a unique component and can not be changed. It should be unique in the universe (but real life won’t allow that, for now we can view it as such). An analogy would be an IP-Address or better a MAC-Address.
The UUID is used to reference this specific component in and across networks.
Be aware that if you want to write good code, you don’t want to reference such a component "hard coded" in your program. Instead, you often want to use config files or a different more dynamic way to reference your components.
You only want to handle such UUIDs directly if you are just trying stuff out, when you implement your own way of referencing components dynamically or when you debug a program.

The second property you want to be aware of is the component nick.
Nick is actually a bit misleading, you could also call it "groups". At first sight the nick allows you to give your components a nickname, so you can understand more easily which component is which when you are presented with a list of network components.
On a second look tho, you can use the nick field for much more. The nick field is also designed as keyword list where each keyword resembles a group. You can f.e. give a component the nick test north 1 and your component will be in the nick groups test, north and 1. You can now use later on a "nick query" to search for all components in the network that are part of the test and the north group using the query test north query and your component will be matched. If you query for just test, then your component will still be matched. Tho if you query for something like test meep your component won’t be matched because it is not part of the meep group as requested.
The nick allows for one more thing. Holding data. You can exploit the nick property to add data like configuration data to a component. But your program will have to figure out how to parse this data it-self.

We have talked about network components, but how do we actually connect them to a network? For this we use network cables that can usually be attached somewhere on a component. These points are also called network connectors, and you already know one, the connector on top of the computer case.
Not every network component has to have such a connector, network cards f.e. are connected to the network via and internal connection inside the computer case.

You can use the computer network cable from the build menu to build a network cable between two connectors just like you can connect power cables. It also allows you to start and end with network poles and wall plugs.
You can place network poles and wall plugs individually if you want. Wall plugs can be unlocked in the AWESOME-Shop.

These network connections won’t travel through rails like power does.

You can also connect cables to machines and things that my not appear to be computer network components.
This is done using the network adapter. This is not a buildable or item. Instead, such adapter will be created and attached to a machine or other thing when you try to connect a cable to it. The Cable hologram won’t be visible as long as it has not found a start and end component. That means you can simply try to create a cable connection from somewhere like a pole or computer, to a machine, and if the cable hologram appears, you know it would create an adapter for you.

The adapter is just an attachment to a machine or other thing that allows you to connect a network cable to it and interact with the object.
Once attached it will stay attached till you disassemble the whole machine/thing.

Any machine that has a power connector, can be connected to the computer network and hence is able to have a network adapter attached. The adapter and so the cable connection will be at the exact same location as the power connector.

Other buildings like a storage container who doesn’t have a power connector have to be manually configured by the mod to support a network adapter. When these get connected to the network, a little power connector mesh will appear somewhere on the building to represent the connection point.

For our first program, you need to connect a storage container to the computer using network cables with at least one network pole in between (The network pole is not important, we just want to have one for later use to be able to expand the network more easily).

The network manager is a hand-held tool that allows you to interact and debug a computer component network.
It additionally provides the data-workbench and a portable reflection viewer.

You can craft the network manager in the equipment workbench.

When you now place the network manager into your active hand slot, you will be able to see an outline to appear around objects you are looking at.
A orange outline means the object is not a computer network component, but you can still interact with it to f.e. get access to its functions via the reflection viewer or get access to the data workbench. This is useful since some objects (f.e. trains) can not be attached to the computer component network, instead it can be referred indirectly by calling a function of a network component (f.e. train station).
If the outline is blue, this means you are looking at a computer network component or an object that has a network adapter attached.

While looking at an object, pressing the primary fire button (left mouse click) will open the network manager’s UI with the outlined objects context.

If the object was a network component or had a network adapter attached, then the network manager will open into the component network outliner. This outliner is the same as inside the computer.
It provides a input field to change the network component’s nick,
a read-only field containing its UUID,
a field showing the name of the connected network and
a list of all connected network components (including it-self).
Each entry of the component list shows the UUID of the component if no nick is set for that component, or it shows the nick instead.
Clicking on the list entry copies that components UUID into your clipboard, so you can easily copy & paste the UUID if necessary.
The icon at the right end of such an entry is clickable and opens the reflection viewer with focus on the type of the network component.

Holding control while opening the UI of the network manager will cause the UI to open into the reflection viewer tab.

The reflection viewer tab is the same as inside a computer. When you open the tab it will show initially the class (type) of the object you were looking at.

While looking at network component or object with a network adapter attached you can press ctrl + c to copy the components UUID into your clipboard.
You can also press ctrl + shift + c to copy the components nick.
And you can also press ctrl + shift + v to paste your clipboard into the nick field of the component.

The network manager has a third tab, the data-workbench.
The data-workbench allows you, as already mentioned, to copy contents of one data storage item to another on.
You can place the item you want to write to into the top slot. The item you want to copy the data from needs to be placed into the middle slot. At the point when you have both these slots filled with compatible items, the input item in the top slot will be written with the contents of the item in the middle slot and be moved into the bottom output slot.
This only works with compatible items. You can not copy the data from a EEPROM to a drive or vice versa, but you can copy the data from one EEPROM to another or copy the data from one Drive to another.