Screen General Properties

The General properties are used for defining the Screen's sizes and the position and sizes of any associated background files. In order to do this just select and open the Screen required and then edit its settings through the Movicon 'Properties Window'.

When sizing the window on the Web Client side, the screens allocated on the Server side will be sized in the way as requested by the WebClient without controlling any maximum limits. This may be a problem for all those platforms, especially for WinCE where memory is limited, and also in Windows 32/64 bit left open to possible memory saturation on the Server in uncontrolled cases. Therefore, four properties have been provided for each screen on the WebClient side, described below, which consent you to choose the screen's max size on the WebClient side and also the max size of the packs sent by keeping them set at low values so that they are small enough and optimal for reduced bandwidths.

Name

This edit box is used for entering or modify the Screen name.

Movicon let's you define a ID number for the Screen window. The ID code can be read in word format in the appropriated 'System Variables' when the Screen is active and an ID number can be declared for each Screen window by specifying it in this edit box. This property mainly enables you find out through the Movion logic and scripts which Screen window is active at a certain moment by reading the value reported by the "System variable" "_SysVar_:ActiveScreen", and it also consents you to load screens using the "_SysVar_:ScreenToLoad" and "_SysVar_:StrobeLoadScreen" system variables. For further inmformation please read the paragraph relating to "System Variables".

Width

The Screen's width in pixels, which it is to be displayed with, is entered in this edit box.

Height

The Screen's height in pixels, which it is to be displayed with, is entered in this edit box.

Save Screen Image

This command saves the screen shot of the displayed screen in the "<Screen>_c.jpg" file within the folder where the screen resource resides (usually in ..\ProjectName\RESOURCES\ProjectName\). This image is exploited by the Tooltip which appears in design mode when the mouse lingers over the screen resource. The Tooltip shows if the "GenTeral\ShowTooltipPreview" registry key has been set to True (value '1').

Delete Screen Image

This command deletes the "<Screen>_c.jpg" file created with the "Save Screen Image" command.

NB: If the "General\ShowTooltipPreview" registry key has been set to True (value '1'), the Tooltip gets created automatically each time the screen is opened and closed in edit mode while in the design environment.

Expression Waiting Time

This time, expressed in milliseconds, allows screen graphical animations to be synchronized with the any eventual handling of basic script expressions in the objects' properties instead of each single variable. Normally graphical animation is the basic script expression management are not synchronized with each other and therefore in cases where a certain variable had been used in a number of basic script expressions of different screen objects, not all the objects involved would update at the same time when this variable changed but one at a time. This is a default function which is obtained by setting the "Expression Waiting time" property to the "0" value. When setting this time higher than zero, for example 1 second (1000 value), when a variable value changes, the graphics will not update until all the basic script expressions using this variable have been processed. After the waiting time set in this property has expired, the graphics will however update even if there are still basic script expressions pending.

Due to limited performance in Windows CE, this property works best with not more than 10-15 expressions.

This property has practically no effect in Web Client based on the fact that web pages are nevertheless updated gradually anyway.

Max. WebClient Width

This property sets the maximum screen width size when displaying in the WebClient. No sizing limit will be enforced when leaving this value set at zero.

Max. WebClient Height

This property sets the maximum screen height size when displaying in the WebClient. No sizing limit will be enforced when leaving this value set at zero.

Max. WebClient Packed Width

This property sets the maximum width size of the frames sent to the WebClient. No sizing limit will be enforced when leaving this value set at zero.

Max. WebClient Packed Height

This property sets the maximum height size of the frames sent to the WebClient. No sizing limit will be enforced when leaving this value set at zero.

Screen Alias Editor

The 'Screen Alias Editor' command opens the alias table relating to the screen. The Aliases defined in the screen will then be used by screen objects in which the same Aliases have been inserted not defined at object level.

For further information please refer to the paragraph entitled "Aliases in Objects".

WebClient Quality

This property allows you to set the quality percentage (1-100%) with which the screen will be sent when first uploaded to Web Client. Leaving this property set at 100%, the screen will be sent with a maximum resolution, based on the Server's settings, otherwise the screen's images will be of poorer quality but faster to send. Once the first image has been sent at a lower resolution, the Server will send the image with full resolution, but the animations and commands will already be active with the first image. This setting may be very handy when a low band rate is being used for Server and Client connections, for instance, using a modem where transmitting pages can be rather slow. In this condition, a page can be loaded quicker at a lower resolution while being able to see what's on screen which is then updated to the normal resolution immediately after loaded. This normal page resolution update will be executed when sending three image portions in sequence, where the update can be seen taking effect gradually and not all at once.

Fast Timer Tick Animation

This edit box is used for entering the time frequency in milliseconds to double-check the screen's "fast" animations. This value does not changes the fast timer tick (default 500 milliseconds), it just changes the frequency with which these animations are double-checked. Therefore, this value obtains a high precision in the timer ticks, regardless of the amount of resources being used.

Fast Timer Tick Loop

This edit box is used for entering the value which expressed the maximum number of animations managed for each fast timer click, Each tick is executed with the frequency set in the "Fast Timer Tick". By increasing this value you will get a graphic refresh of a large number of objects (for which the timer is managed), regardless of the amount of resources being used. It may be necessary to increase this value when the screen contains many objects animated with fast blinks which blink with synchronization.

Slow Timer Tick Animation

This edit box is used for entering the frequency in milliseconds with which the screen's "average" and "slow" timer tick is to be double-checked. This value does not change the average or slow timer tick (default 1000 e 2000 milliseconds) but changes the frequency with which these animations are controlled. Therefore, by reducing this value you will get higher precision in the timer, regardless on the amount of resources being used.

Slow Timer Tick Loop

This edit box is used for entering the value which expresses the maximum number of animations managed for each slow timer tick. Each tick is executed with the frequency set in the "Slow Timer Tick" property. By increasing this value you will get a graphic refresh of a large amount of numbers (for which the timer is managed) regardless of the amount of resources being used. It may be necessary to increase this value when the screen contains many objects animated with average and slow blinks which blink with synchronization.