This article is an introduction to Workspace creation, edition and saving. To perform these actions, you should be familiar with the Cortex edition menu that is described in this article: Graphic edition menu explained (Cortex Series).
The Cortex comes with one default Workspace pre-loaded in the unit. It can be used immediately as it is, or also to help you get started editing and creating Workspaces to customize your own GUI (Graphic User Interface).
To start editing a Workspace, click on the Edit mode enable/disable button, at the top left side of the screen.
Upon activation, the edition toolbar slides out from the left side of your screen. From this toolbar, objects can be added, selected and moved.
Once the edit mode is enabled, the Workspace becomes editable, and all the objects it contains can be:
- Moved,
- Resized,
- Copied, Pasted, Deleted
- Selected, Group-Selected, or All-Selected
- Sent to back (placed behind an object), or brought to front (placed on top of an object),
- Hyperlinked to another Workspace tab
- Edited
These actions can be performed through left or right mouse clicks, either on the selected object(s) or in an empty area of the Workspace. Multiple objects can be selected at once for moving, copying, pasting, and bulk edition of common settings (not all settings can be bulk-edited).
To add an object to a Workspace, from the toolbar, click on the desired object (or object category), and then click in the Workspace where you want the new object to appear (do not click and drag). To move an object, use the selection tool (diagonal arrow) click on the object and move it. To resize an object (except texts), click on the object, then click on any of the blue circles that appears, and drag it to the desired size. To change any of the object’s properties (color, ID association, etc.), right-click on the object and select Edit. Every object category has its own set of properties to choose from. Note that some of these properties can be bulk-edited when multiple identical objects are selected.
To resize or change the font style of text-based objects, right-click on the object, select Edit and then scroll down to the Text Font settings. For a bold or italic font, uncheck the B or the I. Text-based objects can be group-selected for moving, copying, pasting, and bulk edition of commonly shared settings.
To associate a workspace object with a Cortex I/O IDentifier, from the object’s Properties box, go to the top ID field and set the desired input or output number (ID), as shown in the figure below.
Note that the same ID can be assigned to different objects, but any one object can only be associated to a single IDentifer
To add a new Tab to a Workspace, click on the plus sign (+) at the top-right of the toolbar. In the popup that appears, enter a name for this new Tab, then click on Confirm. Do not use the same name for two different Tabs as this will cause some Tabs to not merge when loading and merging Workspaces. All Workspace content can be copied and pasted from any Tab into any other one.
Saving Workspaces
When editing or creating a Workspace, it is not actually being built in the Cortex itself, but rather both from the Cortex’s webserver and the computer’s web browser. It is therefore important to periodically save the workspace as it is being built. If your browser (or DavLink 6) is closed without previously saving the Workspace, the workspace creation/edition work will be lost.
Once the Workspace design and edition is completed, the Workspace can be uploaded to the Cortex unit (more about this below).
To save a Workspace to the Cortex, it must first be saved to your PC from the Floating Toolbar. If this toolbar is not visible, activate it by clicking on the Gear icon at the top of the edition toolbar.
This Save-To-PC function is actually a browser download function that automatically downloads the workspace file to the PC’s default Download folder location. The filename will be default(#).dvw. If you wish to change the download location, you can do so in your browser’s settings. Note that you can also change the filename to ensure easier management of your saved files. Once the files are saved in your computer, they can be transferred to the Cortex with the System/Workspace menu, as described in this article.
