General Designer Interface

1. Docked - The panel is visible, and located somewhere around the perimeter of the workspace. If two panels are docked in the same location, a tab strip will appear to switch between the two panels.
2. Floating - A panel can be dragged outside of the workspace perimeter to be floated. The panel can now be positioned anywhere on your desktop.
3. Pinned - Pinning a panel makes it minimize to one of the four sides of the Designer, represented by a small tab. Hover over the tab to use the panel.
4. Hidden - A hidden panel is not shown. You can open it again by selecting it in the View > Panels menu.

Toolbars can also be rearranged and floated to your liking. Simply drag on the "textured" left edge of the toolbar. If you re-arranged your panels into a layout that you don't like, you can quickly revert back to the default by selecting the View > Reset Panels option from the menu bar.

Project Browser

The Project Browser panel allows you to view the different Designer Spaces, and their component hierarchies at a glance. By clicking Project Properties  icon you can view or change many of the properties settings in your project. You can expand the folders and navigate down through each folder to see elements of your project such as windows, views, containers, and components. The Project Browser shows the entire tree structure from the project level folder down to the component level. You can navigate within your project in two ways, by selecting nodes in the Project Browser tree or directly clicking on an element like a component in the project workspace. Regardless of how you select an element, properties for that element are displayed in the Property Editor. 

Project Resources

All projects have resources, such as Vision Windows, Vision Templates, Perspective Views, project scripts, reports, and named queries. Project resources can be inherited from one project to another. For more information, see Project Inheritance.

Naming Conventions

Project resource names cannot be blank. They must start with a letter, a numeral, or an underscore. The following characters are reserved and cannot be used in names for project resources.

 < (less than)
 > (greater than)
 : (colon)
 " (double quote)
 / (forward slash)
 \ (backslash)
 | (vertical bar or pipe)
 ? (question mark)
 * (asterisk)

In addition,the following names cannot be used as project resource names:

CON, PRN, AUX, and NUL
COM1, COM2, COM3, COM4, COM5, COM6, COM7, COM8, and COM9
LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, LPT4, LPT5, LPT6, LPT7, LPT8, and LPT9 

Right-Click Menu

The Project Browser has basic functionality much the same as many applications that run on your PC. Functions can change depending on the type of project resource you are currently editing. When you right click on a project resource, several options are available: 

Tag Browser

The Tag Browser panel, located on the left side of the Designer workspace under the Project Browser, allows you to browse Tags in the Designer and OPC servers. Tags an be created, edited, displayed, exported, and imported directly from the Tag Browser. See Understanding Tags for more detailed information.

Menubar

This section addresses only the functionality that the Designer menubar shares between both the Perspective and Vision modules.

For information on the menubar tabs unique to the Vision module, see Vision Designer Interface. 

For information on the menubar tabs unique to the Perspective module, see Perspective Designer Interface.

File Menu

The File Menu contains most of your basic options related to saving, similar to many other software applications on your PC. 

To Set or Change the Communication Mode

There are three ways to set or change the comm mode in the Designer:

• Using the Project menu.
• The buttons located on the Main Toolbar.
• Using the Project Properties window.

Setting the Comm Mode from the Project Menu

On the Designer toolbar, go to the Project menu and choose: Comm Off, Comm Read-Only, or Comm Read/Write.

Setting the Comm Mode from the Main Toolbar

If the Main Toolbar is enabled, go to Project, and you'll see a corresponding button for each Comm Mode. The currently selected Comm Mode will have its button highlighted in gray.

Setting the Comm Mode from the Project Propertied Window

This will set the default Comm Mode that the Designer starts up in for the current project.

1. In the Designer, either double-click on the Project > Properties node in Project Browser, or click on the Project > Properties command on the top menu.
   The Project Properties window is displayed.

2. Go to Project > Designer.

3. Under Startup Options, for the Initial Gateway Comm Mode, choose from the dropdown Comm Off, Comm Ready-only, or Comm Read/Write.

   These property settings are saved on a per-project basis.

   
   
   

Communication Error Message

If a user is attempting to write to a project in the Designer or from a Client, and the Comm Mode is not enabled for Read/Write, a dialog box will popup stating the Designer is not in Read/Write Mode. 

If your Tag is not being written too, there are a couple places to check:

• From Main Toolbar go to Project, and make sure the Comm Mode is set to Read/Write.
• If Comm Read/Write is checked, you may have a Client Event Script enabled that could be preventing you from writing to a project or a Tag, as shown in the error message example below. You may need to edit your Client Event Script.
  
  

Preview Mode

The window workspace operates in two distinct modes: Design Mode and Preview Mode. There are three different ways you can switch between Design and Preview Mode:

• One of the easiest ways is from the Main Toolbar using the Preview  icon or the Design  icon to switch between modes.
  
  
  
  
• From the Main Toolbar using the Project > Preview Mode menu item. 
• Using the F5 key to toggle between the two modes.

In Design Mode, your mouse is used to manipulate components in a window. You can select, drag, and resize them. You can alter data bindings and event script configuration. Data bindings are active in Design mode, but event handlers are not.

In Preview Mode, you are interacting with a "live" version of the window. Property bindings and event handlers will run, just like in the Client.

Preview Mode is useful for a quick check of the operation of a window, but it becomes cumbersome when trying to test a whole project. For that, we recommend having a launched Client up as well, and doing testing in the true Client. You can quickly launch a client in one of the following two launch modes via the Tools > Launch Project menu.

Tools Menu

The Tools Menu provides some tools to help you when creating projects. 

Each of the tools are described here.

Help Menu

The Help Menu provides online assistance when looking for information or troubleshooting an issue.