Screen component restrictions in Version 20

[philb1]

Are you planning on increasing the versatility of some of the screen components in version 20 ? There are now loads of ways to edit colors etc but some of the functionality available in earlier versions seems to have been lost.

For example the linear gauge used to have an option for the pointer to be a color bar to create a simple solid-filled gauge. Now there are just fixed triangular or similar pointers. Also the ability to set variable expressions for scaling/ranges has been removed - only fixed numbers are accepted. If it is not possible to recreate the same features I will have to revert to version 19 as parts of my screens make use of these capabilities and I can't find a suitable work-around.

[AzeoTech]

We always like to get feedback from customers on their needs and this is a lot of what drives development in DAQFactory, so please keep it coming.

In this case, however, you can achieve what you are asking with the new gauge control, you just have to do it using a slightly different method.  To make a color bar that indicates a value, just use the RangeColors property instead of the Pointer.  The RangeColors can take expressions for both the min and max value.  To create a simple color bar, set the min to 0, and the max to the desired expression.

To make pretty much any property set the result of an expression, you can use the OnPaint event.  For example, to change the rangeMax to the max(myChannel) you would simply do:

rangeMax = max(myChannel)

in the OnPaint event.  OnPaint runs local to the component so you can access any property directly without "component.myComponent." in front of it.