- Watch video describing this functionality: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtLLUt3O5dc
To create views for visualization, open the Views folder in the Project Window; the main toolbar will show you these options: Open View, Add View, Duplicate View, Delete View, Print View, and Show Used Tags.
1. Click on the Add View icon located above the main screen or use the command from the main menu Project->Views->New View.
A new dialog window opens to allow you to set the visualization parameters:
Name: view name
Description: additional comments about visualization
Parametric Window: option to create a parametric view – use parametric views when you need multiple views different only in a data source; such sources are specified by the received index when a parametric view is prompted (see Commands – Open command and Parametric window).
Connection: list of PLC connections defined in the current project. This is a default connection – if you enter the tag and do not specify the connection, this connection will be assumed as the default.
Refresh: refresh rate of the visualization; time in milliseconds
Page Orientation:
- Portrait predefined vertical display
- Landscape predefined horizontal display
- Note: If your device uses a pop-up menu toolbar (iPhone, Smartphones, etc.) you can set up its width in pixels, and it will be automatically subtracted from the final screen size.
New View Size:
- Parameter Based – here you can set the aspect ratio and the canvas size
- Device Based – variations of pre-defined settings for many types of devices
- Custom – allows you to define your own view settings
- Note: You can change the screen dimensions at a later time if you right-click on the canvas and select ’Resize canvas’ from the pop-up menu.
2. Click on Add to create a view with the selected parameters or press Cancel to exit without creating or saving the view.
In the Project Window, you can see all the views listed in the Views folder. In the Properties window, you can see the parameters of the currently selected view. To open an existing view, simply double click on its name. You can also click on the Open View icon or on select Open View from the Project->Views menu. You may also use the other options such as copy, delete, import a view, etc.
Menu
File
This menu allows you to manipulate an opened view:
Export – exports the current view into other formats: JPG, PNG, BMP, and PDF
Print – prints the current file (shortcut Ctrl+P).
Check – performs a check of your view; use this if you experience malfunctions, and it will check for possible duplicity of IDs, objects misplaced outside of the canvas, etc.
Close – closes the current file (shortcut Ctrl+W).
Edit
This menu provides basic operations like undo, redo, copy, cut, delete, group, lock, select, etc.
Undo – erases the last change made in the program (shortcut Ctrl+Z)
Redo – reverts the change (shortcut Ctrl+Y)
Copy – creates a copy of a selected object or area on the clipboard (shortcut Ctrl+C)
Paste – pastes the object or area from the clipboard (shortcut Ctrl+V)
Paste on the same location – pastes the copied or cut object to the same location as the source.
Cut – cuts a selected object and places it on the clipboard (shortcut Ctrl+X)
Delete – deletes a selected object (shortcut Ctrl +D)
Paste dimensions – transfers certain parameters of a selected object:
- Paste size – modifies selected objects, setting the size to that of the object being copied
- Paste width – modifies selected objects, setting the overall width to the size of the object being copied
- Paste height – modifies selected objects, setting the overall height to the size of the object being copied
- Paste size separately – resizes selected objects one by one
- Paste width separately – changes the width of selected objects one by one
- Paste height separately – changes the height of selected objects one by one
Group – groups multiple objects together (shortcut Ctrl+G)
Ungroup – splits the grouped objects
Enter group – allows access to individual objects inside an object group (shortcut Ctrl+E)
Exit group – returns to normal selection mode, i.e. the whole group will be selected at once (shortcut Ctrl+Shift+E)
Select all – selects all objects on the canvas (shortcut Ctrl+A)
Deselect all – deselects all objects on the canvas
Drawing
In this menu you can create figures, lines, and curves; add pictures and texts; etc.
It contains the same features as the main toolbar; for detailed information, see the toolbar section of this chapter.
Transforms
In this menu you can align, center, distribute, order, flip, and rotate objects and resize the canvas.
Display
In this menu, you can enable grid and rulers; different zoom options are available too.
Dialogs
This menu includes the Memory Monitor utility.
Memory Monitor – shows the amount of memory being used by myDESIGNER
Help
This menu offers additional information about myDESIGNER.
- TIP: The most frequently used functions from these menus are also available in the main toolbar or in the right-click menu.
GUI Toolbar
In the upper part of the GUI editor window, there is a secondary GUI toolbar where you can find all of the necessary functions for designing and animating the views.
- File section – undo, redo, check view, save, save all, a preview of the view.
- Edit section – cut, copy, delete,…
- Zoom section – zoom in, out, fit to the page, zoom on a section.
- Draw section – drawing tools, text element, component library, a text section, insert an image, create an active area, insert smart input.
- Group section – tools for grouping object, ungrouping, entering groups, exiting groups
- Level section – tools for changing the order of objects moving them to foreground or background.
- Modify section – tools for modifying objects, changing colours, scale, align, flip, line join,…
- Layer section – creating layers, changing objects layers, moving layers. hide/show layer,…
- Time section – creating effects, creating a time sequence.
- Scripts section – opening view script, displaying used tags inside the project.
Properties Bar
This bar is located right below the GUI toolbar. It allows you to view and change the properties of selected objects or set default drawing properties such as fill and stroke color; line type and line thickness; font family, type, and size.
If there is no object selected, you can specify the default properties for new objects to be created. If you click on an existing object, you will see its current properties that you can modify.
In the following example, all of the new objects will have transparent fill and black solid line stroke:
With the Properties bar, you can easily change the properties of multiple objects at once: stroke width, stroke style, stroke color, fill color, and also the font family and size.
Options Bar
This bar is located in the left lower part of the Main window.
Here you can activate the repeat action mode; turn on/off the smart guidelines, snap-to-points, and square mode function; enable the grid; set the discrete rotation step; force horizontal/vertical line drawing; and automatically close the drawn paths. Detailed explanations of each function will follow.