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Paintable Canvas
A paintable canvas in<br> Design and Preview modes

A paintable canvas in
Design and Preview modes

Description

The Paintable Canvas component is a component that can be custom "painted" using Jython scripting. By responding to the component's repaint event, a designer can use Java2D to draw anything within the component's bounds. Whenever any dynamic properties on the component change, the component is re-painted automatically, making it possible to create dynamic, vector-drawn components that can represent anything.

 

This component is an advanced component for those who are very comfortable using scripting. It is not user-friendly. The upside is that it is extraordinarily powerful, as your imagination is the only limit with what this component can be.

 

When you first drop a Paintable Canvas onto a window, you'll notice that it looks like a placeholder. If you switch the Designer into preview mode, you'll see an icon of a pump displayed. The pump is an example that comes pre-loaded into the Paintable Canvas. By editing the component's event scripts, you can dissect how the pump was drawn. You will notice that the script uses Java2D. You can read more about Java2D here http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/2d/index.html. You will notice that as you resize the pump, it scales beautifully in preview mode. Java2D is a vector drawing library, enabling you to create components that scale very gracefully.

 

Tips:

•Don't forget that you can add dynamic properties to this component, and use the styles feature. Use the values of dynamic properties in your repaint code to create a dynamic component. The component will repaint automatically when these values change.
•You can create an interactive component by responding to mouse and keyboard events
•You can store your custom components on a custom palette and use them like standard components.

 

See also:

Event Types - repaint

Properties

Appearance

Font

Font of text of this component

Scripting name

font

Data type

Font

Foreground Color

The foreground color of the component.

Scripting name

foreground

Data type

Color

Background Color

The background color of the component.

Scripting name

background

Data type

Color

Styles

Contains the component's styles

Scripting name

styles

Data type

Dataset

Flags

bindable | expert

Behavior

Focusable

If the component is focusable, it will receive keyboard input and can detect if it is the focus owner.

Scripting name

focusable

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

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
•paint
•focus
•propertyChange
•key

 

Scripting Functions

This component has no special scripting functions.