The Drawing tab has the following controls to create, format, and configure displays:

  • Vertical toolbar—On the left side of the Drawing tab. Use these buttons to draw shapes, add buttons, and create special windows. For more information, see Table 1.
  • Horizontal toolbar—Across the bottom of the Drawing tab. Use these buttons to group, combine, align, and lock the selected objects. For more information, see Table 2.
  • Appearance, DisplaySettings, and other settings—Below the main menu buttons, these settings vary based on the type of object selected.

To configure dynamic graphic displays, click on the "Draw" icon in the main menu. 

The Appearance parameters dictate the brush style and color used when drawing objects in the display. Clicking on the Fill option lets you specify the colors, gradients, or objects with which to fill the graphic.

The DisplaySettings dictate the attributes of the display. Displays can be configured as Pop Ups, Dialogs, or as normal page displays.

Like with any graphical object, displays can have varying colors and patterns, borders, titles etc. 

One special feature is that you can specify that a transition animation is used when entering the display. 



In this section...




Vertical toolbar commands 


Commands

Description

Selection Tool

  • Click an object to select it.
  • CTRL+click to select multiple objects and object groups. Hold down the CTRL key as you click each object.
  • Shift+click to toggle selected object from among more than one selected objects.
  • Click in an open area of the display then select a group of elements by highlighting the elements while holding down the left mouse button.
  • Double-click an object to open the Dynamics Configuration window, which provides settings for dynamic object properties.

Direct Selection Tool

  • Use this tool to select an object inside a group (and modify its properties). Click the object to select it.
  • You can also add, remove, and modify the points in a Polyline with the Direct Selection Tool:
  • To move the point select it by clicking the point and holding the left mouse button down. Drag the point to its new position.
  • Double-click a point to add a new point adjacent to the selected point.
  • Right-click a point to delete the selected point.

Hand Tool

Use the Hand Tool to modify the view window by clicking the display background and holding down the left mouse button then shift the display to the desired position.

Geometric objects tools

Right-click to end use of each tool.
To add, modify, and remove points after creating a polygon or polyline, use the Direct Selection Tool.

Rectangle

Creates a rectangle object.

Ellipse

Creates an ellipse object.

Polygon

Creates a polygon object.

Polyline

Creates a polyline object.

Button

Creates a button object.

LabelBox

Creates a label box.

Text Output

Creates a text output object.

Text Box

Creates a text input/output (I/O) object.
To link the text I/O object with a tag, double-click the text I/O object, under the Dynamic configuration window select the TextIO dynamic.

CheckBox

Creates a check box object. Right-click this button to access the following tools:
Creates a radio button object.
Creates a combo box.
Creates a list box.
Creates a password box.
Creates a menu item.
Creates a date picker.
Creates a date/time text box.
Creates a slider control.
After selecting a tool from this menu, it becomes the default tool for that button in the vertical toolbar.

Open Symbol Library

The symbol library includes both built-in and user-defined symbols.

Open Symbol Factory

The Symbol Factory is an external symbol library that contains a lot of symbols precreated to be used on the projects.

Insert Image Resource

Insert an image to be used on the entire project.

Web Browser

Creates a Web Browser object. Hover over this button to access the following tools:
Creates a Report Viewer object.
Creates an XPS Viewer object.
Creates a PDF Viewer object.
Creates a Page Selector object.
Creates an Assets component.
Creates a Remote Assets component.
Creates a Child Window object.
Creates an external WPF component.

After you click the option "Creates an external WPF component", the following components will be available:

Creates a Pie Chart object. For more information, see Configuring a Pie Chart.
Creates a Map Control object.
Creates a Report Preview object.
Creates a Calculator object.
Creates a Bar Chart object. For more information, see Configuring a Bar Chart.
Creates an Advanced Pie Chart object.
Creates a 3D Pipe Viewer object.
Creates a Circular Panel object. For more information, see Configuring a Circular Panel.
Import external dlls.

After selecting a tool from this menu, it becomes the default tool for that button in the vertical toolbar.

Alarm Window

Creates an alarm window. Position the alarm window and double-click to configure the alarm window settings. For more information, see Configuring an Alarm Window below.

Alarm Area

Creates an Alarm Area control, that allows to view the existing alarm tree.

Trend Window

Creates a trend window. Position the trend window and double-click to configure the trend window settings. For more information, see Configuring a Trend Window below.

Drilling Chart

Creates a drilling chart trend window. Position the trend window and double-click to configure the trend window settings. For more information, see Configuring a Trend Window below.

DataGrid Window

Creates a data grid window. Position the data grid window and double-click to configure the data grid window settings. For more information, see Configuring a DataGrid Window below.


Horizontal toolbar commands


Commands

Description

Grid definition

Screen Zoom

Group

Ungroup

Union

Intersect

Exclude

Exclusive-Or

AlignLeft

AlignHorizontalCenter

AlignRight

AlignTop

AlignVerticalCenter

AlignBottom

Move To The Front

Move To The Back

Change Z-Oder

Resize Width

Resize Height

SpaceEvenlyHorizontal

SpaceEvenlyVertical

FlipHorizontally

Flip Vertically

Lock element

Unlock element

Unlock All Elements

Show All Elements

Hide Selected Element


Examples

Here you will see examples showing the functionality of the commands of the horizontal toolbar.

The shapes used can be any object without Dynamics, like polygons, ellipses, rectangles.

 

 
Union  and Intersect  


Exclude  and Exclusive-Or  



  • Lock element command.  : Select both rectangles then click to lock. Now the rectangles can not be selected.
  • To unlock only one rectangle:
  • Click on Direct Selection Tool command  on the vertical toolbar.
  • Select the on the desired rectangle and click on Unlock Element  . 
  • To Unlock all elements just click on Unlock All Elements command  .