Connect attributes to an Industrial Graphic

You can connect Industrial Graphic attributes to InTouch HMI tags by overriding the custom properties of an embedded Industrial Graphic.

Custom properties expose the attributes of an Industrial Graphic to InTouch. The custom properties may or may not be used internally by the animations of the Industrial Graphic.

Connect an Industrial Graphic to an attribute

1. Double-click on the embedded meter. The Edit Symbol Properties dialog box appears.

   

2. Select the Value property. Do the following to associate an attribute to the meter:

   1. Remove the three hyphens from the Default Value field.

   2. Select the browse button of the Default Value box. The Select Tag dialog box appears.

   3. In the Tag Source field, select Default Galaxy. The Galaxy Browser dialog box appears with StorageTank_001 listed in the Instances column.

   4. Select StorageTank_001 to show a list of attributes.

   5. Select the ProdLevel attribute from the list and select OK. The Edit Symbol Properties dialog box shows the StorageTank_001 ProdLevel attribute assigned to the Value property of the meter symbol.

      

   6. Select the Max property from the Edit Custom Properties dialog box.

   7. Type 10000 in the Default Value box.

   8. Select OK to close the Edit Custom Properties dialog box.

   Any animation in the Industrial Graphic configured with the selected custom property now uses the object attribute value during processing.

3. Select the meter symbol you embedded.

4. Select Special, and then Substitute Strings to show the Substitute Strings dialog box. Do the following to change the labels that appear on the meter:

   

   1. Type the word Volume in the Label box.

   2. Type Liters in the Units box, and then select OK.

   The face of the meter shows the labels you changed.

5. Save your work in WindowMaker.

6. Test your managed InTouch HMI application by switching to WindowViewer and running the Reactor application.

The analog meter symbol you embedded in the Reactor window shows the same tank volume value as the digital read-out at the bottom of the tank.

During testing, changes can be made to a symbol even without checking in the symbol. These changes are propagated to all places the symbol is used and that switching to WindowMaker and then back to WindowViewer accepts these changes. This is the quickest way to develop a managed InTouch application with Industrial Graphics. After you place your application into production, you can designate specific computers just to run your applications in WindowViewer.

These procedures explained some of the essential steps to create a managed application with the IDE. The next section includes a set of tables that list other important tasks and the books within the InTouch library that describes how to complete these tasks.