Advanced Animation Techniques

• The following advanced animation techniques will be discussed in this section:
  • Show Symbol and Hide Symbol animations
  • OwningObject property of a symbol

• Show Symbol and Hide Symbol Animations

  • You can configure an element with a Show Symbol or Hide Symbol animation. A Show Symbol animation shows a specified symbol at a specified position when the run-time user clicks on the element.
  • The symbol will display independent of any InTouch Window. A Hide Symbol animation can be configured to close the current symbol or to close a symbol that is shown by a specified element.

• Show Symbol

  • A Show Symbol animation pops-up a specified symbol independent of any InTouch Window at a specified position when the run-time user clicks on the element. In the Edit Animations window for the element, add the Show Symbol animation and configure the options:
    • The symbol that will appear in the new window when the element is clicked on
    • If the new window has a title bar and if so what the name is
    • What type of window the symbol will display in
    • In what position the window will display
    • The window size (set width and height or a scale relative to the symbol or desktop)
    • Identify a shortcut key to Show the symbol, if any

• Hide Symbol

  • In the Edit Animations window for the element, add the Hide Symbol animation and configure the options:
    • The symbol that will close, either the one that was shown by the element, or a symbol that was shown by a specified element
    • Identify a shortcut key to close the symbol, if any
• Please see the Creating and Managing ArchestrA Graphics User’s Guide for additional information.

OwningObject

• The Owning Object property of a symbol is a runtime property that is used to dynamically change the references within a symbol from one instance to another.
• The Owning Object property can be used as the ArchestrA object reference to replace all "Me." references in expressions and scripts.
• The object name can be set either using the tagname or hierarchical name of an AutomationObject

Dynamic Reference for Custom Properties

• You can change the expression or reference of a custom property at run time by calling the following method on the symbol using a client script:
• SetCustomPropertyValue(System.String name, System.String value, System.Boolean isConstant);
• You can select this method using the Element Browser from within the Symbol Editor. This method is supported only for ArchestrA client scripts.
• This method has three parameters:
  • Name - Name of the custom property to be modified on the symbol. This parameter is of type string, and it can be a reference or a constant.
  • Value - The new value to be set. This parameter is of type string, and it can be an expression, reference, or constant. If the value is given in quotes("), then the value is considered a reference. If the value is given without quotes, then the value of the expression is assigned as a constant.
  • Type - The type of the value. This parameter is of type Boolean, which means that the second parameter is reference or constant only if the custom property (specified in the name parameter) is of string and time type. The type parameter has no meaning if the custom property is an integer, float, Boolean, or double type.
• The whole expression or reference of the custom property is replaced with the new value, regardless if it is overridden or not. No partial replacement is supported.
• Only public custom properties on the symbol can be changed.
• When the method executes, it overrides any modifications done by previous IOSetRemoteReference() calls from a native InTouch script.