Advanced formatting for text

Using InTouch WindowMaker, you can configure the intelligent or advanced formatting options, which will be used at run time by InTouch WindowViewer. These options only apply if you are using the advanced formatting features on an analog value display or analog user input animation. The present value of InTouch WindowViewer will be retained if you do not configure advanced formatting options.

The advanced formatting options appear in the Input -> Analog Tagname dialog box and the Output -> Analog Expression dialog box.

Advanced formatting of numeric value display provides you with a native way of formatting numerical data based on data type and data quality. Advanced formatting enables you to format analog values at run time in InTouch WindowViewer.

You can either use text string or enable the advanced formatting options on an individual animation basis. When you migrate an animation from an earlier InTouch version, or create an animation for the first time, text string is set as the default setting.

The advanced formatting configuration options are:

• Text string, which uses the existing InTouch formatting.

• Real, which is formatted as the real value based on the size of the value at run time. The global decimal precision configuration is used to determine the number of decimal places.

• Fixed decimal point, of which the formatting depends on the type of values:

  • Real values: The value is formatted with the user-specified number of decimal places configured using the Precision control.

  • Integer values: The value is formatted as an integer without a decimal point and is indented on the right to accommodate for where the decimal places would have been.

  • Discrete values: The value is formatted as a 0 or 1 without a decimal point and is indented on the right to accommodate for where the decimal places would have been.

• Integer, which is always formatted as an integer without a decimal point.

• Exponential, which is always formatted as an exponent taking into consideration the fixed decimal point.

• Hex, which is displayed in hexadecimal format based on the configured Boolean range.

• Binary, which is always formatted as a binary string taking into consideration the configured Boolean range.

In the Fixed Width box, you can increase the text size specified in design time. This option is not available if Text String formatting is selected for the formatting style.

At design time, if you have selected the Fixed Width checkbox in the animation configuration, then the value rendered at run time does not exceed the length of the text field. If the value exceeds the length of the text field, the globally configured "Fixed Field Width Too Large Character" takes the length of the text field. Formatting with fixed width stops the text element from expanding horizontally at run time to accommodate a value size.

If you do not specify any text for the text field at design time, the fixed width setting is ignored and the full value is shown. For instance, if you enter "" (no text) at design time, it is equivalent to 0 for the text field width. This does not allow any text to be rendered if the Fixed Width option is enabled. In this situation, the Fixed Field Width setting is set to "None" as default at run time.

If you select Clear, the advanced formatting options are reset to the following:

• Text String is selected for the Formatting option.

• The Fixed Field Width option is cleared and subsequently disabled since this option is not available when Text String formatting is selected.

The following values are set by default:

• 0 is set for the Fixed Decimal precision control.

• 0 is set for the Exponential precision control.

• 0 and 31 are set for the Hex bit range controls.

• 0 and 31 are set for the Binary bit range controls.

Format Controls:

• The Precision control accepts an integer value and is only enabled if you have selected the Fixed Dec. Point or Exponential options. The valid range of integer values for this control is from 0 through 8, with 0 being the default value. The bit range consists of two spin controls, each of which takes integers as inputs. These controls are only available if you have selected either the Hex or the Binary option. For these two controls, you need to specify the bit value, ranging from 0 through 31. You can specify the bit range in the forward or reverse order. You can also specify a single bit, using the same bit specification for the range. The default numeric range for the bit specification is 0 through 31. The range is zero based to stay consistent with other places in InTouch where bits are specified.

For versions of InTouch earlier than 3.5 that contain configured analog user input animations or analog value display animations, the migrated animation is set to Text String formatting and advanced formatting is off.

For later versions, the advanced formatting options are migrated forward.