The Message Viewer is designed to view a HL7 message by displaying each message elements by name and value. The flat one-level interface allows easy navigation through the message's elements hierarchy.
Features
- It has a small single executable, no install required.
- It handles very large file easily.
- It has build-in simple HL7 references - the latest version now up to HL7 v2.5.1.
- The latest version (v1.4.1) supports user defined segments (i.e. Z-segments) and custom data types.
- It has a straight-forward layout, colored element highlighting.
- It can easily navigate through messages.
- It has versatile import methods, including file drag-n-drop and paste from memory (Clipboard).
- It is free.
Encoding
In computer terms, an "encoding" specifies how to interpret data from "a sequence of binary bytes" to the characters of a language that it represents. Without knowing the encoding, a program may incorrectly display characters in an unintended language.
By default, the Message Viewer uses the "Western European" character set encoding, which includes English. But you can now specify the encoding you would like it to use, in the Viewer's config file.
You can download and try one of these "pre-configured" config files listed below, if the Viewer's default settings do not already display the message's content properly.
- Unicode (try this one first)
- Arabic
- Cyrillic (eg. Russian)
- Chinese (Simplified, Traditional)
- Baltic (eg. Lithuanian)
- Hebrew
- Japanese
- Korean
- Thai
The above links contain a "SmartHL7.Viewer.exe.config" link, the <add key="encoding" value="windows-1251" /> part needs to be merged into the config reside in same directory as the SmartHL7 Message Viewer's exe, see below.
Config Example
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<configuration>
<appSettings>
<!-- define Z-segments examples -->
<add key="ZS1" value="Service ID [SI] | Service type [CE] | Service location [XAD] | Servive time [TS] | Note [ST]"/>
<add key="ZL1" value="Address [XAD] | Building [ST] | Level [ST] | Room [ST]*"/>
<add key="ZL2" value="Location [MYDT] | Note [ST] "/> <!-- this Z-segment uses a custom data-type 'MYDT' defined below -->
<!-- define custom data-type example. NOTE - Standard defined data-type overrides custom if DT name clashes -->
<add key="MYDT" value="Building | Level | Room number | Shelf number"/>
<!--define encoding if it's for a different language
<add key="encoding" value="windows-1251" />
-->
</appSettings>
</configuration> 
