Color Blink Drawing Method
Available in all applications
Used by: Analog Input, Analog Output, Analog Status, Analog Control, Calculation, Counter, Deadband Control, Digital Control, Digital Input, Digital Output, Digital Status, Network Status, Pump Status, Selector Switch, Totalizer, SQL Logger.
The Color Blink tag drawing method is used to create a color box that blinks to indicate the state of the underlying tag. Blinking is an extremely eye-catching visual feature and should only be used in situations where it is of utmost importance for an operator to notice the state of a tag. Do not use this drawing method casually.
You can configure two colors for each state: the status color, and the blink color. The drawing method will alternate between these colors according to the On Time and Off Time configured for each state.
If one of the colors is left unconfigured, or set to transparent, the object will seem to appear and disappear. If the colors are identical, nobody will notice the blinking. In general, it is best to use either a light and dark shade of the same hue, or to leave one of the colors transparent or unconfigured.
Note: If a page is intended to be viewed on a VTS Internet Client, it is recommended that Color Blink objects and Animated Bitmap objects not be used. This is due to possible latency and bandwidth issues. If you must use Color Blink objects, please ensure that you set slow blink rates.
An example of a configured graphic editor screen for a color blink is as shown.
The color blink drawing method is used most effectively with digital tags, or tags that have binary states such as alarms. If used with an analog tag, the tag’s value will be rounded to obtain the closest value of 0, 1, 2 or 3 (repeating).
Not all tags will have all states shown. Alarms and single-bit digitals have only state 0 and state 1 while 2-bit digitals also have states 2 and 3. The alarm state applies both to tags that have built-in alarms and to tags that have alarms attached to them. The alarm state will be active as long as the corresponding alarm is unacknowledged, regardless of whether the alarm is active.
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The Tag field displays the name and description of the tag that is currently associated with this drawing method. You can use this to select a different tag or parameter to use as the data source for this drawing method.
The Tag field is only present when editing a completed drawing method object
Opens the Select Color Dialog from which you can choose a color to be displayed when the tag’s value is in the corresponding state.
This checkbox must be selected if you wish the completed Color Blink object to alternate (blink) between the State X Color and the corresponding Blink Color.
Opens the Select Color Dialog from which you can choose a blink color to be displayed when the tag’s value is in the corresponding state.
Sets the amount of time (in seconds or fractions of a second) that the Blink Color should be displayed.
Sets the amount of time (in seconds or fractions of a second) that the State X Color should be displayed.
Opens the Select Color Dialog from which you can choose a blink color to be displayed when the tag’s value is in an alarm state.
Opens the Select Color Dialog from which you can select the background color upon which the completed object will be placed. This object will only be visible when placed over the selected color.
Select to indicate that you wish to use the configured Replace Color (see above). If the Use Color Replace checkbox is not selected, then the object will always be visible over any background color.