Properties Window

The Movicon "Properties Window' is of a fundamental importance to every project to set the characteristics of the Movicon resources or components that they are built.

Movicon, in virtue of Movicon's extreme simplicity, always utilizes the properties window to configure its resources.

This window is very userfriendly allowing you to set the selected resource's or object's characteristics and variables quickly with ease.

The set properties will be activated immediately after confirmation has been received when clicking the OK icon on the bar at the top of the same window.

The "Properties Window" is activated by using the 'Property' Command from the 'View' menu.

Movicon memorizes the status of each property group for each object type. In this way when an object is selected, the property groups will be represented with the settings they were last configured with.

Properties Window Activation

There are various ways of displaying the 'Properties Window':

Activate the 'Property' command from the Project's Edit menu
Right mouse click on the Movicon 'Workspace' and select the 'Property' item
Right mouse click on any one of the Movicon Resources or Controls and select the 'Property' item

By using any one of these modes, the 'Properties Window' relating to the Resource or the Control selected in that moment will display.

Every time you select a different Resource or Control, the 'Properties Window' will automatically refresh its different property fields by adapting them to those of the component focused on.

As with all the Movicon windows, the 'Properties Window' can be 'Docked and kept in foreground view' as described in the section on ("Docking Project Windows").

Properties Window Settings

The 'Properties Window' of a Resource or Control allows you to use one or more setting modalities according to which type you have selected. After having activated the 'Property Window', you can select which Resource or Control settings you wish to use among those available in the window.

The main settings of the specified Resource or Control concern their Style, Execution and their General settings. You can also choose which way you want the available properties to be displayed within the window as described below:

Properties Window Displays

How properties are displayed in the 'Properties Window' can be customized by using the command bar at the top of the window.

The icons shown on the command bar function in the following ways:

Pressing this validation button will activate any modifications carried out in the 'Properties Window' of the component selected.

Pressing this button will delete any modifications carried out in the 'Properties Window'. In this case, only the modifications done after the last validation command was executed will be cancelled.

Pressing this button will display the properties by group type. For instance, the groups usually are 'General', 'Style', Execution', etc.

Pressing this button will display the properties in alphabetical order and not divided in groups.

This button is enabled only when the properties are displayed in groups. Pressing this button will switch the groups over to 'Exploded' display mode or 'Compressed' display mode, or vice-versa, to allow you to hide or view all the properties contained in each group.

Pressing this button will display or hide the help window which appears at the bottom of the 'Properties Window'. This help window only gives a reduced description string of the property selected. It may be more helpful to provide a property description immediately without having to open a supplementary help window instead.

Pressing this button will directly open a Movicon help online file on the topic belonging to the selected property description.

Pressing this button will allow you to switch from "Advanced" (not easy) display mode to "Easy" display mode of the properties listed in the window or viceversa depending which mode you are in.

Easy Mode

The Properties Window has two display modes: "Easy" and "Normal". The display mode is changed by using the bottom from the toolbar in the same window.

In "normal" mode (button released) Movicon displays all the properties that are available. In "Easy" mode (pressed button) the most advanced and least used properties are hidden from view to simplify user interfacing for the less experienced programmer.

Further more, new property groups can be defined and property fields can be given custom colors as desired. Property window can be customized by editing the xml files as described below.

The xml files' configuration for customizing the properties window has been purposely designed by Emerson based on the most common uses of the product. However, these files can be modified as pleased and are found in the Movicon installation folder. This type of operation is recommended for the expert user only.

"PropVis.xml", "PropVisEasy.xml" and "PropVisEasyPopup.xml.xml" Files

These three files allow you to decide which properties, or property groups, are to be hidden in the Properties Window during project design mode. All of these files have identical structures. The "property id" attribute is used in the xml files to identify the property through its id in the Movicon resources. To make things easier, this ID also appears in the Help string of each property which appears by clicking on the interested property so that you can verify it. The "visible" attribute allows you to define whether the property must be visible or not. The property will be visible when set at "1", otherwise it will remain hidden when set at "0".

The settings of the two PropVis.xml and PropVisEasy.xml files are activated with the "Toggle Easy Mode" button. The PropVis.xml file settings will be loaded when the Easy mode is not active, while the PropVisEasy.xml. file settings will be loaded when the Easy mode is active. The PropVisEasyPopup.xml file is used for loading the settings for screen object property Popup windows (click on the top right corner of the object).

".xml" file structure:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>

…

</VisibleState>

The "description" attribute's only purpose is to describe the property being edited, and it is not at all taken into consideration by Movcion.

"PropGroup.xml", "PropGroupEasy.xml" and "PropGroupEasyPopup.xml" Files

These three files allow you to decide which property groups are to be displayed in the Properties Window. By using these files, you can define which groups each property is to belong to. Each one of these files has an identical structure. The "property id" attribute is used in the xml files to identify the property through its id in the Movicon resources. To make things easier, this ID also appears in the Help string of each property which appears by clicking on the interested property in order to verify it. The two PropGroup.xml and PropGroupEasy.xml file settings are activated with the "Toggle Easy Mode" button. The PropGroup.xml file settings will be loaded when the Easy mode is not active, while the PropGroupEasy.xml. file settings will be loaded when the Easy mode is active. The PropGroupEasyPopup.xml file is used for loading the settings for screen object property Popup windows (click on the top right corner of the object).

".xml" file structure:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>

...

</GroupState>

The "groupid" attribute represents the ID of the group to which the property must belong to. When this attribute is left blank or is the same as its default property's group ID, the property will be associated to its default group and, therefore, everything will remain the same as before. When the "groupid" attribute is associated with an ID of another group, the property will be moved to the group identified by that ID. When the "groupid" attribute is associated with a new ID that has not already been assigned, a new group will be created in the properties window with the name specified in the "groupname" attribute. This happens only if the "child" attribute is set a"0". However, if the "child" attribute is set at "1", the new group will be created as a subgroup of the property's default group. In this case the subgroup will also have the name defined in the "groupname" attribute.

The group IDs created using these files can then be inserted in the PropVis.xml, PropVisEasy.xml and PropVisEasyPopup.xml files for managing their visibilities.

The "description" attribute's only purpose is to describe the property being edited, and is not at all taken into consideration by Movcion.

"PropColors.xml", "PropColorsEasy.xml" and "PropColorsEasyPopup.xml" Files

These three files allow you to pick the back and text colours of the properties displayed in the Properties Window. By using these files you can define each property with a background colour and text colour. Each one of these files has identical structures. The "property id" attribute is used in the xml files to identify the property through its id in the Movicon resources. To make things easier, this ID also appears in the Help string of each property which appears by clicking on the interested property so that you can verify it. The two PropColors.xml and PropColorsEasy.xml file settings are activated with the "Toggle Easy Mode" button. The PropColors.xml file settings will be loaded when the Easy mode is not active, while the PropColorsEasy.xml. file settings will be loaded when the Easy mode is active. The PropColorsEasyPopup.xml file is used for loading the settings for screen object property Popup windows (click on the top right corner of the object).

".xml" file structure:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="iso-8859-1"?>

...

</ColorsState>

The "back" attribute represents the property's backcolor whereas the "text attribute represents the property's text color. The value is a long number type that identifies the color code.

The "description" attribute's only purpose is to describe the property being edited, and it is not at all taken into consideration by Movicon.