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Note: This user manual will undergo maintenance starting at 5 p.m. PST 2/25/2021 and be unavailable for approximately 30 minutes. We apologize for the inconvenience.
There are a number of properties you can set for your projects within the Designer, Vision Clients, and Mobile devices. For example, there are properties for setting the touchscreen mode, customizing a client's auto-login, or configuring how the clients receive updates, and many more.
The property settings on the Project Property window apply to the whole project. This page identifies and describes all the available project properties.
Accessing Project Properties
In the Designer, either double-click on the Project > Properties node in Project Browser, or click on Project > Properties on the menu bar at the top of the Designer. Project properties span several functional areas each containing settings applicable to that area.
Project Properties
A project's General properties apply to the project as a whole, across all module functionality. For a new project, there are many default settings that you can use (see next). For example, there are default settings for the Tag provider, database, publish mode, initial comm mode, window editing, and Client launching.
Note: There are a few properties of a project, such as its name, description, and title that are not available from the Designer and you need to set them in the Gateway. To do so, go to the Gateway Webpage, under the Configuration > Projects section, click on the edit link next to the project. You cannot edit these settings while the project is open in the Designer.
Important Concept: Defaults
Under Project > General is where you set the project's Default Database and its Default Tag Provider. It is important to understand how to use defaults effectively for proper project design.
Wherever you use a database connection or a Tag in a project, you are always given the option to use the project's default, or an explicitly named connection or provider. If your project is like most typical projects, it primarily uses a single database and a single Tag provider. By consistently using the default option, you make your project more resilient to change.
For example, suppose you have a project, and it has a database connection named Production_DB. Now you want to adapt the project to a new, similar plant, while leaving the existing project intact. You copy the project and create a new database connection, named New_DB. If your project consistently used its default database connection, the switchover will be as simple as changing the copied project's default database. However, if you used the explicit Production_DB connection in your groups and screens, you will need to laboriously switch the bindings over to New_DB.
| Project // General Properties | |
|---|---|
| Tag Settings | |
| Property | Description |
| Default Provider | The Tag provider chosen here will act as the project's default tag provider. To use the default provider, simply omit the source section of a Tag path, or leave it blank, for example: |
| Client Poll Rate | The Client poll rate (in milliseconds) is the rate at which a Vision Client or Ignition Designer polls the Gateway for updates to its subscribed Tags. |
| Database Settings | |
| Default Database | This is the default database connection to use for this project. To use the default database connection, use the special <default> connection, or in scripting, the empty-string connection "". |
| Security Settings | |
| User Source | Choose the User Source that governs this project's security: specifically, which group of users (User Sources) is allowed to log into the client. The User Sources are all defined in Gateway's Configure section under the Security > User, Roles page. |
| Required Client Roles | This property is for Client logins, and determines what role(s) a user must have before they can log into the Client. You can optionally specify a list of roles that are required for a user to log into this project. Use commas to separate the roles. Users must have at least one of the roles in order to log in. If no roles are specified, the user only needs to correctly authenticate with the User Source in order to log in. To define the roles, go to the Gateway's Configure section under the Security > User, Roles page, click the manage users link, and then go to the Roles tab. |
| Audit Settings | |
| Enable Auditing | If auditing is enabled, audit events that relate to this project will be stored in the chosen audit profile. |
| Audit Profile | The audit profile stores the audit events when auditing is enabled. |
| Publishing Settings | |
| Publish Mode | Here you specify how project publishing is handled. By default the project is set to Auto, which means both the staging and published version of the project will always be synchronized.
See also: Published vs Staging. |
| Commit Messages | You can specify whether or not commit messages are required, and if so, under what conditions. You can specify the condition as: None, OnPublish, or OnSaveandPublish. |
| Project // Permissions Properties | ||
|---|---|---|
| Permissions | Required Designer Roles | When opening the project in the Designer, these properties determine which roles are required when making certain changes to the project.
More details can be found on the Project Security in Designer and Gateway page. |
Designer Properties
The Designer property settings are saved on a per-project basis.
| Designer // General | |
|---|---|
| Startup Options | |
| Property | Description |
| Initial Gateway Comm Mode | The Designer starts up in the default Comm Read-Only mode. The property allows you to change the mode the Designer starts in when viewing the project. The options are: Comm Off, Comm Ready-Only, Comm Read/Write.
For more information, see the Communication Modes page.
|
Window Editing Properties
These options affect the operation of the Designer as it applies to the Vision module's window design.
| Designer // Window Editing Properties | |
|---|---|
| Window & Template Committing | |
| Property | Description |
| Commit on Close | Prompt - By default, every time you close a window, you are prompted whether or not you wish to commit the window: i.e., maintain any changes that have been made in the Designer session. Always - This option allows you to skip the commit prompt, opting to always commit the window on close. |
| Template Auto-Commit | On - Automatically commits template definitions when switching to another window or template. Off - In this option you commit the templates manually, it reverts all changes to the last time the window was committed. |
| Component Manipulation - Affects how the user interface acts in manipulating components | |
| Constrain to Parent Container Bounds | Disabling the constraint on parent bounds allows you to position components outside of their parents bounds, which can be helpful in advanced layouts. |
| Nudge Distance | The number in this box is the distance (in pixels) that a nudge moves (when using the arrow keys) or resizes a component. |
| Alt-Nudge Distance | The number in this box is the distance (in pixels) that an alt-nudge moves (when using the arrow keys plus the Alt key) or resizes a component. |
| Default Component Layout - Used for all newly added components | |
| Layout Mode | Relative - All newly created components will be configured with a Relative layout, further configured by the Relative Layout Options property. |
| Relative Layout Options | When the Layout Mode property is set to Relative, these options determine the layout options of new components. For more information, refer to Component Layout. |
| Anchored Layout Options | When the Layout Mode property is set to Anchored, these options determine the layout options of new components. For more information, refer to Component Layout. |
| Default Color Mapping | The initial color mapping when configuring a new number-to-color binding. |
Client Properties
These properties apply to the Vision Client in general.
| Client // General | |
|---|---|
| Property | Description |
| Timezone Behavior | The Vision Client can emulate any timezone. By default, it will appear to be in the same timezone as the Gateway Timezone. This has the effect of all Clients behaving the same, regardless of the timezone setting on the Client's host operating system. Depending on your project's requirements, this may not be optimal. You can have the Client use the host's timezone by choosing the Client Timezone option, or you may specify any explicit timezone for all Clients to emulate. |
| Update Mode - Affects how Clients receive updates when the project is saved/published | |
| Notify | This is the default option, which means that a notification bar will appear at the top of the Client when an update is available. The update gets applied when the user clicks on the notification bar. |
| Push | This option automatically pushes all project changes and updates to all running Clients with no user interaction. This is often desirable when a Client is running in a situation where mouse access is inconvenient, such as a large overhead display. |
| Touch Screen | |
| Touch Screen Mode Enabled | All Clients can operate in touch-screen mode. When enabled, clicking on editable numeric and text entry fields (i.e., Text Fields, Numeric Text Fields, etc) will pop up on-screen keyboards that can be used for data entry. You can optionally set the width of any scrollbars (number of pixels wide/tall). |
| Touch Screen Mode Active on Startup | Configures the Clients to start up with the touch-screen mode active. More details can be found on the Using Touch Screen Mode page. |
| Data | |
| Disable Tag History Data Cache | The Clients normally maintain a cache of data retrieved from Tags History, improving repeat operations on graphs and tables. When this option is disabled, no data is cached, and the full queries execute against the Gateway each time data is required. |
Launching
These properties apply to the Vision Client launch process.
| Client // Launching | |
|---|---|
| Gateway Launch Page | |
| Property | Description |
| Default Launch Mode | Determines the mode on Clients launched from the Launch button that appears next to the project in the Gateway Home page. Available modes are Windowed or Full Screen. |
| Windowed Button/Full Screen Button | Each launch mode can also be enabled individually, which allows that mode to appear in the Dropdown list next to the Launch button on the Gateway Home page. |
| Launch Icon | |
| Launch Icon | The image specified here is used to represent the project on the launch page and desktop shortcut. This needs to be a path to an image that has been uploaded to the Gateway. Use the browse button to choose or upload a new image. |
| Windowed Properties | |
| Vendor | This property is displayed as the project is launching through Java Web Start, as well as in the JWS application manager. |
| Homepage | A URL that is displayed in the JWS application manager. |
| Width | The width of the Client window when launched in Windowed mode. |
| Height | The height of the Client window when launched in Windowed mode. |
| Screen Index | The number here is the index of the screen to use for Full Screen mode, it starts at 0. This property is not supported on all operating systems. |
| Start Maximized | If the box is selected, when the Client is launched in Windowed mode, it starts maximized. Note that this is not the same thing as Full Screen mode, which is only available when the Client is launched in Full Screen mode. In Full Screen mode, the width, height, and start maximized properties have no effect. When launched in Full Screen mode, the user is given an Exit button on the login screen by default. For terminals where the application should not be exited, this button can be removed by checking the Hide Exit Button box. |
| Start Centered | If the box is selected, when the Client is launched in Windowed mode, it starts centered.This property is ignored if Start Maximized is enabled. |
| Hide Exit Button | If the box is selected, when the Client is launched in Full Screen mode, the exit button is hidden to prevent the application from closing. |
| Client Memory - Governs how the Client use RAM resources on its host machine. | |
| Initial | The initial memory setting is how much memory the Client will require on startup. While this is typically left alone, boosting it a bit can improve performance somewhat. |
| Maximum | The maximum memory setting sets a cap on how much memory the Java VM is allowed to use. When you launch a Client on a machine with plenty of RAM, you'll also need to boost this setting to allow the Client to use more RAM. |
Login
These properties affect how the Vision Client's login process behaves and appears.
| Client // Login | |
|---|---|
| Login Screen | |
| Welcome Message | The message that appears in the upper-left corner of the Login screen. If left blank, no message is displayed. |
| Welcome Image | The image that appears in the upper-left corner of the Login screen. If left blank, uses a default image. |
| Username Text | The text that appears next to the username field. |
| Password Text | The text that appears next to the password field. |
| Login Button Text | The text that appears on the Login button. |
| Show Locale Selector | Determines if the Locale Selector should appear on the Login screen. This property interacts with Ignition's Localization system.
|
| Auto Login | |
| Enable Auto-Login | By enabling auto-login, you can have the launched Client skip the login process. The Client will log in behind the scenes using the credentials supplied here. If they fail, the login screen will be presented. See also: Setting up Auto Login. |
| SSO Login | |
| Enable SSO Login | Enable Single Sign-On for the project. The Project's default Authentication Profile must use Active Directory, and SSO must be enabled in the Profile. See Active Directory Authentication for more details. |
Timing
| Timing | |
|---|---|
| Polling Base Rate | The base rate, in milliseconds, for all polling bindings. |
| Connect Timeout | The maximum amount of time to wait for connections to the Gateway to be established. Specified in milliseconds. |
| Read Timeout | The maximum amount of time for socket connection to the Gateway to remain open. Specified in milliseconds. |
| Connection Concurrency | By default, Clients are not limited by the number of concurrent connections to the Gateway. These connections are used to send Tag writes, return database results, as well as any other action that requires information to be passed between the Gateway and the Client. Depending on what is running in the Client, your network's bandwidth could be hindered. Enabling this property will limit the amount of concurrent connections the Client can maintain. Note that this may negatively impact Client performance, but is usually preferable on busy networks. |
User Interface
These properties affect how the Vision Client appears and behaves while it is running.
| Client // User Interface | |
|---|---|
| Minimum Size | |
| Width and Height | Typically, a Vision Client is designed to run on multiple different resolution and sizes of monitors. The various component layout features help design elastic screens, but sometimes you need to set a lower bound as to how small you'll allow the Client's usable area to shrink. This is what the Minimum Size settings are for. You can see these settings visually represented in the Designer as lines on the Vision workspace when the Root Container is smaller than the configured Minimum Size.. Whenever the usable space shrinks smaller than these bounds, scrollbars will appear, capping the width and height to these minimums. This defaults to 800x600. In the image below, the project was set to a minimum size of 400 x 300. Since the window is smaller, the outline is visible.
|
| Client Background Color | This option allows you to specify the color of the Vision workspace which will be visible when not obscured by windows. |
| Client Menu - Options to alter the appearance, or remove completely, the menu bar that appears in a running Vision Client. | |
|---|---|
| Font Button | Change the font of the Menu Bar. |
| Hide Menu Bar | Hide the entire Menu Bar in the Client. Usually enabled in situations where users should not be able to close the client. |
| Hide Windows Menu | Hide just the Windows menu option. Enabled when users should not be able to close windows in the Client. See also: Menubar. |
| Touch Screen Keyboard Width | Determines how wide the Touch Screen Keyboard should appear in the Client. |
| Docking | |
| Axis Precedence | When windows are docked on adjacent sides, this property determines which sides should take precedence. When set to "East/West", windows docked to the East or West sides will expand vertically from the top to the bottom of the Client, and will push any North or South docked windows out of the way. |
| Prevent Popup/Docking Overlap | By default, popup windows are not allowed to overlap any docked window. Disabling this property will allow Popup windows to be placed on top of docked windows in the client. |
| Infinite Desktop | By default, the desktop area will be expanded if floating windows are dragged out of frames. If false, popups are prevented from being dragged beyond the bounds of a window so they don't get distorted. |
Client Permissions
This feature is new in Ignition version 7.9.4
Click here to check out the other new features
Click here to check out the other new features
| Client // Permissions | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Property | Description | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Enable? | Determines if the Client has access to this category. If unselected, the category will be disabled in the Client for all users. If selected, the Required Client Roles text field will also be used to determine if the Client has access. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Required Client Roles | A comma separated list of Managing Users and Roles and/or Security Zones that have access to the category while the Enabled checkbox is selected. While these fields have focus, the down arrow key on the keyboard may be pressed to make a list of available roles appear. There are several ways to use roles and zones in this field, and they can be used together in the comma separated list.
When creating a new project, all of these settings will be disabled by default. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Category Descriptions | The following is a list of the initial categories. Note that the categories you see in your Designer are dependent on which modules are installed on the Gateway. Additionally, third-party modules can add to this list.
The image below contains the following configuration: Alarm Management is only available if the logged in user has the "Administrator" role (regardless of their current zone), Datasource Management has been disabled for all users, and Device Management is available if the logged in user has the "Administrator" role and the Client is in the Security Zone named "Default".
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Mobile Properties
These properties apply to Mobile clients.
| Moblie // General | |
|---|---|
| Property | Description |
| Enable Mobile Launch | Enables the project to be launched as a mobile project. |
| Hide from Launch Page | Hide this project from the mobile launch page. |
| Enable Geolocation | Enables geolocation which will ask the device for latitude and longitude. |
| Image Encoding | The image encoding preference for mobile clients. PNGs offer the best quality, while JPEGs offer a trade-off between quality and bandwidth. |
| Viewport - Defines how the mobile project should fit to the device | |
| Fit to Device | Fits the project to the available size of the mobile browser. |
| Custom | Sizes the project to explicit dimensions, allows the device to pan and zoom. |
| Utility Bar - Determines if the Utility Bar should be present on mobile clients. | |
| Auto | Automatically places the utility bar along the bottom or side depending on device orientation. |
| Hidden | Hides the utility bar entirely. |
| Auto Login | |
| Enable Auto Login | Automatically logs into all mobile versions of the project. To complete the setup, enter the following:
See Setting up Auto Login for more details. |
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