Container

misc_Container

Description

The container is a very important component. All components are always inside of a container, except for the special "Root Container" of each window (see Anatomy of a Window). A container is different than normal components in that it can contain other components, including other containers. Uses for containers include:

•	Organization. Containers can be used to group components together. These components can then easily be moved, copied, or deleted as a group. Furthermore, they will all be organized inside of their parent container in the project navigation tree, which makes them easier to find.

•

Re-usability. Containers allow a unique opportunity to create a complex component that is made up of multiple other components. The Container's ability to have dynamic properties aids this greatly. For instance, if you wanted to make your own custom HOA control, you can put three buttons inside of a container and configure them to all use a 'status' property that you add to their parent Container. Now you have built an HOA control that can be re-used and treated like its own component. The possibilities here are endless. Create a date range control that generates an SQL WHERE clause that can be used to control Charts and Tables. Create a label/button control that can be used to display datapoints, and pop up a parameterized window that displays meta-data (engineering units, physical location, notes, etc) about that datapoint. Creating re-usable controls with Containers containing multiple components is the key to rapid application development.

•	Layout. Containers are a great way to improve window aesthetics through borders and layout options.

Grouping

A container can be set as a "group" by right-clicking on it and choosing "Group Container". This will make the container act like a single component - you won't be able to select its children by clicking on them. This can help make window design easier, as you'll always pick the container by clicking anywhere inside it. You can still get to the individual sub-components by choosing them in the project navigation tree. You can un-group a container at any time by right clicking on it and choosing "Ungroup Container".

See also:

Component Layout

Custom Palettes

Properties

Appearance

Font

Font of text of this component

Scripting name	font
Data type	Font

Background Color

Set the color of the background

Scripting name	background
Data type	Color
Flags	bindable

Texture

Background texture image for this container.

Scripting name	texturePath
Data type	String

Styles

Contains the component's styles

Scripting name	styles
Data type	Dataset
Flags	bindable \| expert

Behavior

Combine Repaints

Set this to true for containers with many sub-components that need to redraw frequently (flashing, rotating, animating).

Scripting name	combineRepaints
Data type	boolean

Tile Optimized

If true, this container's children should never overlap, and you'll get better painting performance.

Scripting name	optimizedDrawingEnabled
Data type	boolean
Flags	expert

Common

Name

The name of this component.

Scripting name	name
Data type	String
Flags	bindable

Visible

If disabled, the component will be hidden.

Scripting name	visible
Data type	boolean
Flags	bindable

Border

The border surrounding this component. NOTE that the border is unaffected by rotation.

Scripting name	border
Data type	Border

Mouseover Text

The text that is displayed in the tooltip which pops up on mouseover of this component.

Scripting name	toolTipText
Data type	String

Opaque

If false, backgrounds are not drawn. If true, backgrounds are drawn.

Scripting name	opaque
Data type	boolean

Cursor

The mouse cursor to use when hovering over this component.

Scripting name

cursorCode

Data type

int

Values

0	Default
1	Crosshair
2	Text
3	Wait
12	Hand
13	Move
4	SW Resize
5	SE Resize
6	NW Resize
7	NE Resize
8	N Resize
9	S Resize
10	W Resize
11	E Resize

Data

Data Quality

The data quality code for any tag bindings on this component.

Scripting name	dataQuality
Data type	int
Flags	bindable \| expert

Scripting

Events

The following event sets are fired by this component. See Component Event Handlers to learn more.

•

mouse

•	mouseMotion

•	propertyChange

Scripting Functions

This component has no special scripting functions.