View

A View is a file with the extension .view and contains the overall structure of the user interface. A project can contain several Views. At the beginning it has to be defined in the engineering which View should be used as Start View to build the HMI. The structure of the user interface is defined by the View selected as Start View.

Update capability of the Plastic Application HMI Editing the Plastic Application HMI can lead to an impairment of the update capability. This may affect the support provided by Beckhoff Automation.

Portrait.view

Unless the Portrait.view file is modified, this user interface has a portrait aspect ratio (4:5) with a width of 1024 px and a height of 1280 px. It consists of the following components:

1. Header:
• Application name (click on it to display the Home.content in the main area).
• Currently loaded recipe (click on it to display the RecipeManagement.content in the main area).
• Current operation mode.
• Date and time.
• Username (click on it to open submenu).
• Flag to display the selected language (click on it to open submenu).
• Screenshot function (enabled using the function TakeScreenShot from the Beckhoff.TwinCAT.HMI.Plastic.Functions NuGet package).
• Logo
2. Favorites area: Contains user-specific favorite buttons for quick navigation of frequently used pages.
3. Event line: Display of the latest upcoming alarm and a click on it shows the Alarms.content in the main area.
4. Main area: Display of the selected content.
5. Slider area: With the help of the ToggleSliderArea, ShowSliderArea and HideSliderArea functions from the Beckhoff.TwinCAT.HMI.Plastic.Functions NuGet package, the slider area can be shown and hidden via the arrow keys, shown by clicking on a tab or hidden for desired contents in the main area (e.g. Scope.content). Clicking on one of the following tabs will display the corresponding content in the slider area:
• 1st tab: Navigation.content contains all available contents of the project compared to the favorites area.
• 2nd tab: Info.content displays the most important machine data.
• 3rd tab: ManualFunctions.content contains the manual functions of the machine.
• 4th tab: Using the UpdateSliderContentRegionEx function from the Beckhoff.TwinCAT.HMI.Plastic.Functions NuGet package, the 4th tab can optionally be displayed and the icon and the content displayed in the slider area are updated depending on the content displayed in the main area. Possible contents can be recognized by the name extension _Settings.content.

Configurator control

The Configurator control serves as a general control for setting control-wide configurations. The instance of the control only needs to exist and does not require visibility. The following attributes are required for further setting of the HMI:

• UnitConfig (Link): Path to the JSON file with the corresponding unit switching scheme. The file is supplied by default with the Beckhoff.TwinCAT.HMI.Plastic.Controls NuGet package, but it can also be copied and modified so that a different path must be set.
• NavigationConfig (Link): Setting of the navigation structure with additional information like icons, slider content etc.
• RecipeHandshakeSymbol: Setting of the symbol for recipe management. An instance of FB_PlcStateToHmi is required for this.
• Temperature symbol: Setting the symbol for the temperatures. An instance of FB_TemperatureHmi is required for this.
• UserLoggerSymbol: Setting of the symbol for user changes. An instance of FB_UserLoggerHmi is required for this.

Available from version 12.6.0