The Alarm Notifier is an optional real-time interactive banner that displays along the top of any Canvas screen configured to show it when the screen is opened in Canvas.View and Canvas.View.Lite. The notifier pulls its information from the Common Alarm Services (CAS) where centralized alarm processing for the current value services (CVSs) takes place. It displays all unacknowledged alarms in the configured services and can be used to monitor and acknowledge alarms, and view additional information about facilities and points in alarm. Alarms are displayed in priority order, with the highest priority on the left. Alarms can be filtered, and the background and text colors configured as desired. The alarm notifier can be configured to play an alarm sound (a WAV file) to signify unacknowledged alarms based on an alarm priority range, although alarm sounds can be disabled via a -NoAudio command-line parameter for the instance of Canvas.View or Canvas.View.Lite.

The Alarm Notifier uses navigation by facility to link to a facility's associated screen. See Navigation by Facility for more information.

An external library of compiled .NET code that you can reference when scripting screen content in Canvas.

The Canvas Backstage view is a set of pages where you can manage and configure your Canvas experience as a whole, such as creating, opening and saving screens and objects, managing plugins, configuring required general settings, configuring web settings for the CygNet Thin Web Client, configuring the alarm notifier, using find and replace, launching and updating the online help, configuring logging, sending feedback, viewing about and copyright information, and exiting the application.

Click File (or ) in the main application window to access the Backstage view, which provides the following options, some of which can also be accessed from the application Toolbar:

• New — Create a new screen or object, and select a script language
• Open — Open a previously created screen or object from your CygNet folder location, from the Recent Screens list, from:
  • an APPS or BSS folder
  • a local or network file-system folder
• Save — Save the current screen with the same file name, to:
  • an APPS or BSS folder
  • a local or network file-system folder
• Save As — Save the current screen with a new file name, to:
  • an APPS or BSS folder
  • a local or network file-system folder
• Plugins — Add or access Canvas plugin assemblies containing additional controls
• General Settings — Access and configure general settings, application settings, global settings, and the blink interval for the Canvas applications
• Web Settings — Access and configure settings for the CygNet Thin Web Client application
• Alarm Notifier— Access and configure global settings required for the Alarm Notifier
• Find/Replace — Find and replace text strings in your screen's properties, control properties, script, and/or metadata
• Help — Launch the CygNet Help and configure logging settings
• Feedback — Submit feedback via comments, survey, or log files about your user experience with Canvas
• About — View file, product version, and copyright information about Canvas
• Exit — Exit the current screen and the Canvas application

Click (back) to return to the main Canvas workspace.

Canvas.View has its own Backstage view.

The CygNet HMI (human machine interface) application, containing screen design, drawing, and controls functionality used to develop user screens to interact with your CygNet SCADA system and comprehensively manage data tasks.

Canvas.View is the read-only runtime companion application to Canvas (as CygNet Vision is to CygNet Studio) providing a standard multi-document interface to your Canvas screens. You can open the following types of files in Canvas.View:

• any Canvas screen (.can), opened directly or via hyperlink
• any Canvas layout file (.clx)
• any Canvas screen (.can) containing a Nested View control, which references a CygNet Studio screen (.csf), although the screen must be tabbed to display correctly
• any CygNet Studio screen (.csf), although the screen must be tabbed or docked to display correctly.

Canvas.View is 64-bit application by default. When started the application will detect the platform and will run as 64-bit on a 64-bit machine and 32-bit on a 32-bit machine.

You can customize the user interface to choose a color theme for the entire application, options include: dark, light, or blue. The theme is configured in the Canvas Backstage view, Settings page, and is stored in the Canvas workspace settings. The application must be restarted to pick up the new theme from the workspace settings. The default color theme is Dark.

Canvas.View.Lite is a read-only runtime companion application to Canvas. While Canvas.View can create complex layouts of multiple screens in pinned, docked, tabbed, or floating states, Canvas.View.Lite utilizes a single main screen that drives all other screen navigation. It is always fullscreen and removes all user interaction that is not part of the screen’s HMI (no file menu, toolbar, backstage view, status bar, etc.). The main screen is opened via command-line.

Both visualization applications are valuable for different HMI configurations. Because Canvas.View.Lite doesn’t use the docking framework that Canvas.View does, it loads faster, at the cost of a far simpler UI and simpler layout options.

Canvas.View.Lite can only open Canvas (.can) files:

• any Canvas screen (.can), opened directly or via hyperlink
• any Canvas screen (.can) containing a Nested View control, which can reference a CygNet Studio screen (.csf). Canvas.View.Lite does support CygNet Studio files that contain Nested View Tools.

Canvas.View.Lite is 64-bit application by default. When started the application will detect the platform and will run as 64-bit on a 64-bit machine and 32-bit on a 32-bit machine.

You can customize the user interface to choose a color theme for the entire application, options include: dark, light, or blue. The theme is configured in the Canvas Backstage view, Settings page, and is stored in the Canvas workspace settings. The application must be restarted to pick up the new theme from the workspace settings. The default color theme is Dark.

A stand-alone preview window showing your Canvas screens in run-mode, as end-users of the screens will see them.

Canvas supports custom color palettes, which can be configured in the Canvas settings and then applied to any screen containing CygNet-aware controls. A custom color palette will override the default point state definitions for background color and foreground color for any point type. If a custom color palette is selected for a screen, any CygNet-aware controls using Point State for color will apply the selected color palette in run mode.

A user interaction object you can place on a Canvas screen and customize to interact with your CygNet data.

A default or on-demand chart is a pre-configured chart that you can access anytime from a Canvas or Canvas.View screen in design or native run mode in a separate dialog box. The default chart feature provides a customizable means to open multiple default charts from a screen, and to trend selected data from different controls, such as a CygNet Grid or Text Tool control, quickly giving visual context to your data. A default chart can be associated with a Canvas screen or opened on demand from that screen in run mode. Any chart configuration can be saved with a Canvas chart file (.ccf) extension, which can be opened directly, or assigned as the default chart for a specific screen. The series on a default chart supports the following appearance options including: series type (bar line, spline, step, area, etc.), point visibility, point size, point labels, label color and connector color. Default charts also support absolute and relative dates, date overrides, and historical rollups.

The Canvas Global Settings File is an XML-based file (<name>.gsf) containing a compilation of underlying configuration settings globally available to Canvas and Canvas.View. Global settings apply to all screens and objects and are automatically associated with a screen when it is created. Global settings include, for example, relative facility definitions, object library location, style sheets (describing colors, fonts, etc. for controls), facility navigation settings, color palettes, default date format, and blink interval.

The Historical Playback bar is a run-mode feature that allows a screen to be "replayed" using historical data rather than showing current data in any controls that show current values. You can continuously stream historical data, or step incrementally through the data, or jump back to the most current timestamp at any time. Historical playback applies to all open screens with controls showing current values.

The Layer property specifies the name of the layer to which this object is assigned. Layers can be used to show, hide, and edit multiple controls on one layer without affecting controls on another layer.

• Type the name of the layer into the Layer field (the name can be a previously created layer or a new layer).
• All layers are listed on the Layers pane, where you can manage the layers for the screen in design mode and run mode.

The navigation by facility feature allows you to navigate to a specific screen by selecting a CygNet facility. You can also specify optional facility record properties to be included when the navigation is triggered. Several navigation modes are available depending on your desired usage:

• hyperlink to a facility's associated screen in a new window
• hyperlink and replace the current screen with a facility's associated screen (with or without a navigation toolbar)
• notify any Navigator controls on the current screen to replace the active screen in the Navigator with a facility's associated screen (with or without a navigation toolbar)
• navigate to a facility screen by firing a screen script event

Configuration of this feature is required in the Canvas global settings, in the facility record in your CygNet system, and in the Facility navigation mode property on the hyperlinking screen.

The Alarm Notifier and the Search Box control, also use navigation by facility to link to a facility's associated screen using any of the navigation modes described above.

An Object is a simple Canvas screen containing one or more controls, which can be used on one or many screens. The controls on an object might represent assets such as a well or compressor or device or facility. Once configured, you can drop an object onto many different screens. If you need to make a single edit to any one control on an object, you simply change the master object, save the object, and all screens containing that object will be automatically updated. Any change made to an object will affect all instances of that object on any Canvas screen where it is used. Objects are analogous to templated screens in CygNet Studio. An object and a screen share the same configuration properties, events, and methods.

One of several component sections of the primary application window comprising your Canvas screen development workspace, which you can display/hide to fit your workflow.

An external control object assembly, containing controls you can make available for use on your Canvas screens.

The canvas.plugins file is an XML-based file listing saved information about the plugin assemblies you have added to Canvas. This Canvas application settings file is generated upon close and stored in your AppData folder. Access the file location via the Settings folder button on the General Settings page of the Backstage view.

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.

Canvas provides a simple mechanism that combines data from multiple facility services and multiple facilities into a single relative facility definition for use on any screen. The feature allows a screen to display information about a specific facility and at the same time be aware of other facilities (relative links) that are logically associated with the specific facility.

A user interaction screen that is the final output product of the Canvas application. Screens are saved with .can file extension.

The canvas.settings file is an XML-based file listing saved information about the global configuration of your Canvas application. This is a Canvas application settings file which is generated upon close and stored in your AppData folder. Access the file location via the Settings folder button on the General Settings page of the Backstage view.

Several CygNet-aware controls display a single real-time data point. These single-value controls are as follows:

Single-value controls share an identical point configuration user interface and a similar color configuration user interface on the Properties pane.

Historical data for these controls can be displayed via the Historical Playback bar.

A Canvas style consists of a set of properties with preconfigured property values for a particular control type. Style sheets allow you to quickly apply a predetermined style to any control added to a screen or object. By designing and using style sheets consistently you can make changes in one place and cascade those changes down to all Canvas screens in the CygNet environment. Style sheets allow for the creation of unique style guidelines for your enterprise, making screen design faster, easing the burden of screen maintenance, and improving operator experience. If you create more than one object with the same properties, it's a good idea to use styles to ensure consistency in design.

The CygNet Thin Web Client (TWC) is CygNet Software’s browser-based Human-Machine Interface (HMI) client application, which allows users to view operational screens and workflows in a web browser using sophisticated web-based technologies. The Thin Web Client is a Single Page Application (SPA) that is built using customer provided and built screens. Those screens are constructed using the design and screen-building components of the Canvas desktop client. Canvas is used to layout HMI components onto a screen (a page of controls) and configure a logical workflow between screen controls and related screens. When published, those screens are converted and compiled into the SPA that resides on the main TWC server.

A row of buttons in the primary Canvas application window, used to access the primary actions needed to manage your Canvas screens and workspace. Many of the commands available in the toolbar can also be accessed via the Backstage view. Canvas.View has its own toolbar. A Chart (and default chart) has its own toolbar.

The arrangement of panes and screens in your primary Canvas window, that is saved each time the application is closed and displayed in the same state when next reopened.