4.2 Resizing Objects
In this exercise, you will learn how to resize objects on your application pages. To do so, you will use the object's "handles".
When your application is in design mode, left-clicking on an object will select it on the page. If there is more than one object at the point where you clicked, each successive left-click will select a different one of them in turn.
When an object is selected, handles that look like small black boxes surround it. These handles can be used to resize the object. In this exercise, we will use the handles of the Top Bar object to resize it according to the size of the tank graphic's cutaway section. When we work with objects in design mode, we use the Pick Graphics tool.
1. Ensure that the Pick Graphics button is selected in the Configuration Toolbox. The mouse pointer and tooltip in the image displayed below identify the Pick Graphics tool.
Figure 40
2. Move your mouse pointer over the Color Fill object.
3. Click the Color Fill object.
Note that, rather than the object you want being selected, the tank bitmap becomes selected instead, as indicated by the handles about its perimeter (Figure 41). This is because it was the more recently drawn object at that location on the screen and is therefore the top-most object.
Figure 41
4. Click on the Color Fill object again. This time, the object you wanted is selected as shown in Figure 42.
Figure 42
5. The handles can be used to adjust the object in the following three ways:
• Click on a corner handle and drag it to resize the object as shown in Figure 43.
• Click on a middle handle and drag it to stretch just one side of the object.
• Click in the middle of the object and drag the entire object to a new location.
Figure 43
6. Using a combination of the techniques described in step 5, move and resize the Color Fill object until it fully covers the area behind the tank cut-away, as shown in Figure 44.
Figure 44
7. Click on the Booster Station application page anywhere outside the area of the Color Fill or tank. No objects should now be selected.
Observe how the tank now appears as if water is rising and falling within it.
There is no reason why you couldn't have drawn the tank graphic first, then placed the analog input's drawing method on top of it. The only problem would have been that the Color Fill would appear as a solid rectangle in front of the tank instead of only showing through the cut-away. (Figure 45) This is a small problem, easily solved by the drawing order buttons. Selecting the Color Fill, then clicking on the Send to Back button (Figure 46) would adjust the drawing order to look more realistic.
Figure 45
Figure 46
To finish the tank, you will combine the separate graphic pieces together into a single object. This is done with the Group command.
8. Select both the tank and the image change object.
You can do this by holding down the Control key on the keyboard while clicking in the middle of the two objects.
9. Click on the Group button in the Configuration Toolbar.
The New Draw Method dialog will appear. A set of grouped objects becomes a new way to draw things in VTS, hence the name of this dialog. You are creating a new method of drawing something or a “draw method”.
10. Type the name “Booster Tank” in the space provided.
11. Press the Enter button or the Tab button to register what you typed and enable the OK button.
12. Click on the OK button to close the dialog box.
The Edit Parameters dialog opens.
Since the objects you selected before using the group command included a tag, your new drawing method is a parameterized object. If you were to add an other booster tank tag at a later time, you could use this same object, but link its parameter to the new tag instead of AI20_1.
For now you need only step past this and the next window to finish the process.
13. Click on the OK button.
The Drawing Method Editor appears. You could use this to change the appearance of every instance drawn of this group.
14. Click on the X in the upper right corner to close the drawing method editor.