Polybench® Reference
Displays the current sample value for each channel at the input

Value Viewer

Overview

Use the Value Viewer to display values from multiple channels at once. The Value Viewer can be configured for screen displays, as well as for paper prints. The Value Viewer optionally also displays channel names and units.

Operator ports

Input S: Floating point values

Paired User Interface Object

This operator is loaded simultaneously with a user interface object. The user interface object can be moved to another page, and would normally be displayed in the end-user application. The operator and this user interface object can never be separated. If you delete the operator, the user interface is deleted automatically as well. Note that you cannot delete the user interface, only the operator symbol!

Properties

Find more information about changing properties here: link

ExtraRoomTopBottom
type: True or False
Set to True to get extra distance between the first line of values and the top border, and last line of values and bottom border. This is analog to the ExtraRoomTopBottom of Y-T Viewers.
Select one of those presets:
True or False
True may also be read like 'yes' and false like 'no'


AlignValues
type: Select from the list
Select one of the options to indicate how the values in the viewer should be aligned.
Select one of those presets:
LeftAlign
Values are aligned along the left border
Center
Values are centered horizontally
CenterDecimals
Real values are aligned around their decimal dots or commas. The dot or comma is centered.
RightAlign
Values are aligned along the right border

Please not that for some text font faces, the alignment may show small deviations. This is due to the alignment of the characters on the pixels of the graphical surface, which is done in a way that the characters are best readible.

FontTitle
type: See description



FontContents
type: Known text font name
The text font of values and labels of the shown contents or graph (select from the Font repository).

This property uses the Font Repository. For more information about the use of text fonts in a project, refer to link

LeftPaneWidth
type: Integer value
Width of the left area, measured in pixels when the page is zoomed at 100%.


RightPaneWidth
type: Integer value
Width of the right area, measured in pixels when the page is zoomed at 100%.


TitlePaneHeight
type: Integer value
Height of the title area, measured in pixels when the page is zoomed at 100%. Set to 0 zero to hide the title.


BottomPaneHeight
type: Integer value
Height of the bottom area, measured in pixels when the page is zoomed at 100%.


ForegroundColor
type: Known color name
Color of foreground items (general texts and lines), which is a color from the color repository.

This property uses the Color Repository. For more information about the use of colors in a project, refer to link

BackgroundColor
type: Known color name
Color of the background, which is a color from the color repository.

This property uses the Color Repository. For more information about the use of colors in a project, refer to link

BorderStyleOutside
type: See description
Border style from the border repository to define the outer border. Leave empty to have no border.


NumberFormat
type: See description
Number format name from the number format repository. This number format is used to display all values of this object. Example: '.3' three digits after dot-separator


Title
type: See description
The title above the signal pane. You may use variables in the text. (Note: this is not the Caption of the operator symbol!)

Variables that are used as part of the viewer title are only updated if the viewer itself is updated, so you cannot for example display a clock as title.
One example of use is to display the name of the file that is currently viewed in the viewer. Your title then may look like this:

Viewing file $Design.File Replay.Caption$ (date: $Design.File Replay.FileDate$

Caption
type: Word or phrase
The name of the object in the project. This name must not contain '.' or '$' characters.

Every object has the Caption property. This property is very important, because it is the name by which Polybench recognizes this object.
It is allowed to give multiple objects the same name, as long as the objects are of the same type. In that case, a reference to this caption includes all the objects with the same caption.
In Polybench, every object can be addressed by an Address specifier, which starts with the dollar sign, for example: $My Page.My Object. 'My Page' would be the Caption of a page, and 'My Object' the Caption of an object on that page.

Documentation
type: See description
Optional documentation of this object.

It is good practice to write in short notes why you have used this object, and why its properties are set the way they are set. If this object is an operator, the Documentation text is displayed below the operator symbol.

Details

The Value Viewer's concept is simple: values of all input signals are displayed without delay. If you want to show only a selection of signals, then you should use a Channel Terminal (link) or Channel Splitter (link) before the Value Viewer's operator.

The values are updated as fast as the user interface allows them to be updated. If you require a slower updating of the values, then you may consider to use a Resampler (link).

If values don't fit in the value content area

The size of the value content area is a result of the general size of the Value Viewer, minus the left and right areas. In some cases, the values that should be displayed - depending on the size of the text type face - may not fit in that area. Whenever a value cannot be displayed entirely, it will be truncated and '...' will be written behind it, indicating that the value is not complete.

Normally, values should be displayed entirely, so you have to take care that the Value Viewer is large enough to display all possible values. The truncation feature is only there to warn the end user that a value is not complete. If this situation occurs, the designer of the app is strongly encouraged to change its design in a way that the displays are large enough for the values that are displayed.

Please note that because of display resolution and text font settings of the operating system of your end user, the value content may be slightly larger than you intended it to be. This may lead to truncation of the displayed value.

About transparent backgrounds

The Value Viewer does not support (semi-)transparent backgrounds. If a background color has transparancy, the transparancy is removed and the 'full' color is used.

User Interface Object on Printable Pages

The user interface of this component will be printed on a report, if it is put on a Printable Page (see link).