L-VIS User Manual
158
LOYTEC
Version 6.2
LOYTEC electronics GmbH
to function together on the same page. This way, the page continues to work when it is
copied or moved to another project, because the required invisible objects are copied
together with the page. The base collection outside of the main menu should only hold
objects which are related to the device, rather than specific page functionality.
The last collection in the tree view is called
Templates
. It is used to collect all template
pages of the project. Templates are a complex topic, which is covered in more detail in
section 9.15 of this manual.
9.10.1 Collection Properties
Aside from the properties on the
General
property page, which apply to all objects, a
collection keeps record of the position and size of the bounding box which can be drawn
around all visible objects contained in the collection. This data can be seen on the
Common
Properties
page. In the context menu of the collection are a number of commands to add
new objects and control the visibility of the entire collection (
Hide / Show Contents
).
9.10.2 Collection Handling
If a collection is part of a project page and contains visible objects, a bounding box around
all objects contained in the collection is drawn in the preview when the collection is
selected. Using this box, the entire collection may be moved to another location on the
page. It is also possible to resize the bounding box, which will evenly spread out the
contained objects. For example, if a collection contains three objects in a horizontal row
where the second object is located in the center, resizing the bounding box will keep the
leftmost object at the left edge, the rightmost object at the right edge and the middle object
in the center of the bounding box, that is, the relative position of each object in the
collection does not change.
NOTE:
A collection can only be resized if there are at least two visible items inside the collection.
In addition, resizing is only possible in a direction where at least two controls are not at the
same position. This is a direct consequence of the way resizing works.
To select a control inside a collection, the easiest way is to select it from the tree view at the
left. If the control is to be selected directly in the preview, there are at least two objects on
top of each other (the collection and the control). If there are nested collections, or if
controls overlap on the page, there may be even more layers of objects. There are different
ways to select a specific object in such a case: Each of these methods will:
Left mouse button double click
moves the current selection down to the next
object under the cursor in the layer stack. When the bottom most control is
reached, the selection moves back to the topmost control.
Middle mouse button single click
does the same as the left double-click.
Tab key
moves the selection down to the next object on the current page in the
tree view. From the last object on the page, the selection moves back to the first
object on the same page.
Using the tab key is especially useful while using the keyboard cursor keys to move and
resize a control. Using the tab key to switch the selection to the next object on the page can
be convenient in this situation.
The command
Lock/Unlock Position
in the context menu of the collection allows locking
the current position of all objects inside the collection, to protect them from accidental
move while working on other objects in the LCD preview.
