Paint Inheritance

From Planimate Knowledge Base

Paint Inheritance is the ability to replicate all paint objects on a panel or portal onto another panel or portal.  The original paint objects are the 'Parent' objects and the replicated objects 'Child'.

In general, any change(s) made to the parent object attributes (such as position, size, colour, broadcast setting etc.) will be applied to the child object.

Any attribute changed made to the child object will break the inheritance for that attribute ONLY.  For example, if a child paint object's colour is changed, any colour change made to the parent will not be applied to this child.  Any other attribute change (such as a positional change or re-size) however, WILL be applied to the child.

Hierarchical Paint Inheritance is supported.  It is possible for a paint object that is child to a parent on another panel/portal to also be a parent to a paint object in another panel/portal.  This is useful in User Interface (UI) management, ensuring that the look and feel of each display panel/portal is similar.

Contents 1 Creating Inherited Paint Objects 2 Inheritance Management 2.1 Inherits From <location> (Child) 2.2 Inherited <x> Times (Parent)

Creating Inherited Paint Objects

To replicate paint objects from one screen onto another:

1. Navigate to the panel/portal that will have the child objects.
2. In Paint Mode (Ctrl-P) Right Mouse Click (RMC) on the back ground of the panel to display the following menu:
   
3. Press the Inherit from... menu item.
4. From portal/panel hierarchy list, select the panel that contains the paint objects you would like to replicate (parent paint objects), and press OK.

Paint objects that appeared on the selected screen are now replicated on the visible screen.  The new objects are child to the originals.

Notes:

• The child objects are NOT grouped.  As a result, the removal of a child object WILL NOT break the inheritance of all child objects on the screen.  In general inheritance between parent and child is retained wherever possible.
• It is possible for a screen to have child objects that have parents on a variety of screens, simply inherit objects onto the panel/portal from more than one location.
• When a parent paint object is removed an option will be provided to either remove all sibling paint objects via the option Delete Inherited? (In turn the sibling's siblings will be removed in the case of hierarchical inheritance.)
• When adding a new paint object to a panel/portal hosting parent paint objects, an option will be provided to Place this object on each inherited screen?

Inheritance Management

Once paint inheritance has been established, a Right Mouse Click (RMC) in paint mode a child or parent inherited object will reveal additional menu options for the paint object related to its inheritance:

• Inherits From <location>, for a child paint object.
• Inherited <x> Times, for a parent paint object.

Selecting one of these menu items will provide the following options for that object:

Inherits From <location> (Child)

Revert to Original; will re align all the attributes of the selected child to the attributes of the parent such as position, colour and size.

Go to Original's Screen; will navigate to the screen that has the parent object.

Disconnect from Original; will remove any inheritance links to the parent.  Any changes made to the FORMER parent will no longer affect the selected FORMER child object.

Inherited <x> Times (Parent)

Revert all inheritance to this; will re align all the attributes of the parent to the attributes of ALL the child objects such as position, colour and size.

Browse Inherited Object Screens; will generate a list of panel/portal(s) containing child objects of this parent.  Select the panel/portal and press OK to navigate to the selected screen.

Disconnect All Inherited; will remove any inheritance links to ALL child objects. Any changes made to the FORMNER parent will no longer affect the selected FORMER child object.