Shape

The Shape control is a CygNet-aware single-value control that supports the drawing of geometric shapes, such as ellipses, triangles, rectangles, polygons, lines, lines with arrowheads, and other custom paths on your screens. You can use one of several predefined shapes or line types or specify a geometric syntax to draw a custom path or line style. Several other configurable properties are supported, including:

• The control's color elements can be set to one of the following options: a) automatically follow the selected application theme regardless of the underlying color palette used, b) sourced from the point state color defined for the associated point, or c) be explicitly configured.
• Colors displayed in the control can be overridden when a custom color palette is selected for the screen.
• The control can display a static text string, such as a label, legend, tooltip, or a dynamic text string based on point or facility attributes. Dynamic text is built using tokens, which can represent real-time CVS point properties, point configuration properties, and facility properties. In run mode, the tokens are replaced with the attribute's value.
• The control can be configured with a valid point configuration but prevented from retrieving any CygNet data, allowing the display of static text while still allowing CygNet data context available from script.
• The control optionally can be hidden if the associated point tag is invalid.
• Date, time, and value formatting for the text displayed on the control is supported.
• Font sizing, text styling, and text weighting are also configurable.

• This control supports hyperlinking to other screens via configuration or scripting. A single click or double-click action will send any configured facility to the receiving screen. Hyperlink supports the following operational modes: Open, Modal open (a subordinate popup window), Open and close, Replace, Replace with navigation, and Close.

• This control supports tooltips, which can be displayed as tokenized text, a Canvas object, or the tooltip can be scripted to retrieve and display values for related points or CygNet notes.
• In the Canvas Native view a context menu is available at runtime with access to CygNet point and alarm data, including alarm acknowledgment, current and history values, point and facility configuration, and trending point data on a default chart. Custom context menu items can be scripted allowing customized control behavior.
• The mouse cursor that appears when the mouse hovers over the control is configurable.

This control is supported in the Canvas Native view and the CygNet TWC web view.

Shape Example

The following image shows several types of Shape controls.

A screen with several sample Shapes including a custom Shape showing point in alarm and context menu

Property Inheritance

Property Inheritance

Property inheritance, or sending and receiving, is a widely used concept in Canvas. The application supports an explicit relationship between screens, objects, and controls, where certain property values, such as facilities and SiteService details, are passed from one element to another via an inheritance framework. Screens, objects, and controls can be configured as property senders or property receivers and provide configuration options where you can explicitly define the source of the facility and SiteService. Depending on how you have your screens, objects, and controls configured, the facility and SiteService may be received from any one of the following sources:

• from itself — indicated by selecting <Self> and then explicitly configuring the property
• received from the screen — indicated by selecting Screen, which is always present as a sender
• received from another control — indicated by selecting the Name of the sending control.

Broadcasting

Screens and objects support an additional notification option to broadcast their facility and SiteService selection changes to other open screens. If configured, a <Broadcast> option is available to source the screen's facility and SiteService properties from another open screen.

For example, a Text Tool can be configured to get its facility from the screen and the screen can be configured to get its facility from a Tag Chooser. Or Screen_A might source its facility from Screen_B, which gets its facility from a Tag Chooser.

Receiver or Sender

The Shape control supports property inheritance as a receiver of its SiteService and facility:

Receive from		Send to
SiteService	Facility	SiteService	Facility
self screen	self screen other controls	none	none

The Shape control does not send its SiteService or facility to other controls.

Related Topics