User Guide - Maker

The Maker application screen is divided into three sections: Menu/Toolbar at the top of the screen, Navigation Tree on the left side of the screen, and the main Drawing Panel.

Menu/Toolbar

The menu and toolbar are located at the top of the screen. Each menu group corresponds to a group of icons in the toolbar. All actions can be performed either by selecting the menu item or pressing the corresponding toolbar icon. There are four main groups of actions:

File
Change workspace
Save workspace
Exit application

Edit
Copy
Cut
Paste
Delete

Draw
Button - General purpose On/Off push button.
Label - Text display. Also allows embedded tag values by placing # inside the text.
Image - Any GIF file. A limited library of GIFs is included.
Fill - Fills the selected area (indicated by +) with On/Off color as determined by a tag value. Typically used to animate GIF images.
Percent Fill - Fills the selected area (indicated by +) with a single color. The height of the filled area is determined by a tag value. Typically used to animate GIF images.
Navigator - Switches the display to the selected screen.
Line - Draws a line. The line width and color are configurable.
Shape - Draws a rectangle or oval. The border color and fill color are configurable.
List - A list of numbers and associated text values is entered in the Maker application. The Viewer application displays the text that corresponds to the numerical value of a tag.
Real Time Graph - Up to four tag values can be displayed on the graph. The most recent 15 minutes of data is displayed on the graph. Older data scrolls off the graph.
Historical Graph - Log tags to database. Query database for graph of tag values over time. (Professional version only)
Popup Screen - Display a smaller popup screen on top of the currently displayed screen. Particularly useful for Hand-Off-Auto (HOA) control or creating Yes/No confirmations. (Professional version only)
Recipe Edit - Create new recipes and edit exiting recipes. See Recipe User Guide (Professional version only)
Recipe Load - Load the values defined in the selected recipe into the Server data port(s). See Recipe User Guide (Professional version only)
Security - Login, Logout, Change Password, and Administer Users. Five user levels can be specified. Each of the other controls can be enabled/disabled based on the user level of the currently logged-in user. (Professional version only)

Align
Left
Center horizontal
Right
Top
Center vertical
Bottom
Space horizontal
Space vertical

Navigation Tree

The navigation tree is used to manage Screens and Tags. The tree is used in the same way that Windows Explorer can be used to manage files and folders in the Windows operating system. Items can be added, copied, removed, and renamed simply by clicking on the tree. This is particularly useful for organizing tags in a hierarchical structure. For example, the entire CIP #1 tag folder can be copied and pasted into a new CIP #2 tag folder with just a few clicks. Then the new CIP #2 tags simply need to be re-assigned to its corresponding Server PLC address. Tags can be assigned to an element on the drawing panel by dragging the tag from the tree onto the element or by selecting the tag from within the element's properties dialog.

Drawing Panel

Screens are designed by drawing elements on the drawing panel. Multiple drawing panels can be active at the same time, and each active drawing panel is displayed as a separate tab. After a drawing element is selected from the Draw menu/toolbar group, use the mouse to place the element on the drawing panel. The properties of an element are accessed by right-clicking the element and selecting Properties from the pop-up menu. A new window will open displaying the options available for the element.

Workspaces

Each project designed with hmiMAX is assigned a workspace. A workspace is simply a directory on the computer. When the Maker application starts, it asks for a workspace selection as shown in the figure below.