Properties | To configure a Thumbnail object | Thumbnail in Run-time
Thumbnails act as smaller versions of a chart or grid within a display. A thumbnail can be used when you want to save space on your display. A thumbnail is also useful when you want to include information about a process, but you do not want or need that information to be displayed immediately within a display.
The Thumbnail can be inserted into a display from the Insert menu. When you do this, you enter the type of chart or grid that the Thumbnail will use, and you can also specify the chart or grid template, the image that will appear as the Thumbnail, and so forth.
Alternatively, the Thumbnail can be created from a chart or grid that already exists in a display. To do this, right-click the chart or grid that you want to appear as a Thumbnail, and choose Create Thumbnail. The default settings for the Thumbnail are used, and rather than using the default template for the grid/chart, the grid or chart's current configuration is retained. If you have used the right-click method of creating a Thumbnail, you can change the Thumbnail configuration options by double-clicking the Thumbnail in the configuration environment.
Depending on how the Thumbnail is configured, when you click the Thumbnail object in run-time, the associated object displays in a pop-up window, or the object appears as full frame (fills the entire display window). For more information on the full frame feature, see Showing Objects as Full Frame.
You can convert any Thumbnail to the object that it is configured to display. To do this, right-click the Thumbnail (in the configuration environment) and select Convert To Object. This option is useful if you no longer want the object to appear as a Thumbnail in your display, or if you want to make changes to the configuration of the chart or grid. When the Thumbnail is converted to the object you can then double-click the object to access the configuration dialog box, make changes as required, and then re-create the Thumbnail (right-click and select Create Thumbnail).
NOTE: When the Thumbnail is converted to an object (right-click and choose Convert to Object), the linking is preserved.
Thumbnails are not editable in the run-time environment. To configure thumbnails in a display, you must have access to the configuration environment. You can, however, add data sources to a Thumbnail during run-time, but only if the Thumbnail is configured as full frame, and only using the drag and drop method. For more information, see Dragging and Dropping data in Run-time.
When using the Thumbnail object in a display, it is important to note that, in the run-time environment, there is limited interaction between the display that launches the Thumbnail popup window and the chart/grid in the popup window. For example, if you have a button on the display that loads pen groups, you will not be able to use this method to load pen groups into a Thumbnail chart. As an alternative, you can right-click the Thumbnail chart and select Load Pen groups from the context menu.
The Thumbnail object does have interaction with objects in the display when they are linked to it. For example, you can link a Time Component object to pass the start and end times to the Thumbnail object that displays a Time chart. In Run mode, the user can select a new time on the Time Component, and then select the Thumbnail to show the chart. The chart will be updated with the new start and end times. For more information on linking objects, see Parameter Connections.
When you configure time settings for a Thumbnail object, you can allow both component and display-level time updates; however, if the Thumbnail is set to launch a pop-up window, keep in mind that the user will not be able to use the run-time toolbar, and therefore will not be able to update time on the object using display-level scrolling or Quick Time. For more information on configuring time updates, see Time Management.
