Place an animated tank

This part of the tutorial shows how to select an animated tank from the Symbol Library and place it on the screen (similar to how you selected and placed the "Exit" icon), then associate some project tags with the tank's properties.

1. In the Graphics tab of the Project Explorer, expand the Screens folder.

2. Double-click summary.scc.

   The summary screen worksheet is reopened for editing.

3. On the Draw tab of the ribbon, in the Libraries group, select Symbols.

4. In the Symbols menu tree, open the System Symbols folder and then open the Tanks sub-folder.

5. Browse the tank symbols and choose one.

   You may choose any tank symbol that you like; they all function basically the same.

   

6. Click the symbol.

   The mouse cursor will change to show that the symbol is ready to be placed in a screen.

7. Switch back to the screen where you want to place the symbol and click in it.

   The symbol is placed as a Linked Symbol object.

8. Double-click the object to open its Object Properties dialog

   

   A tank is an arrangement of different objects and animations (for example a rectangle, a bar graph, etc.), all combined together as a Linked Symbol. You can modify the properties of this symbol by editing the properties list. For this tutorial, you will modify the tag associated with the tank level.

9. For the property TagLevel, delete the existing value and then type Level[Index].

   You do not need to reopen the Project Tags datasheet to create tags as you develop the project.

   You have not previously created the tag Index in the Project Tags database, so an Question message asks you if you would like to create it now.

10. Select Yes.

    A New Tag dialog is displayed.

11. Configure the new tag with Array as 0, Type as Integer, and Scope as Local.

    

12. Click OK to close the New Tag dialog.

    You can use the tag Index to set the array position of the tag Level, and show the level for any of the three tanks in the same object:

    • When Index equals 1, the tank object shows the level of Tank #1 (that is, Level[1]);

    • When Index equals 2, the tank object shows the level of Tank #2 (that is, Level[2]); and

    • When Index equals 3, the tank object shows the level of Tank #3 (that is, Level[3]).

      Also, because the tag scope is local, the tag can have different values for the Server and Client stations at the same time. Consequently, the local user (that is, the Server station) can be monitoring the level of Tank #1 while the remote user (that is, the Client station) is monitoring the level of Tank #2.

13. Close the Object Properties dialog.

14. Go to File, and then select Save.

This figure shows what your screen will look like after you have created the tank object