New

The New menu option allows you to create a new Object. That Object could be a new window, a new template, or even a new project. It can vary depending on what modules you have installed, also providing the ability to make new transaction groups, reports, Sequential Function Charts, and more.

Open

Allows you to Open a previously created project.

Save and Publish and Rollback

By default, saving and publishing are all done together. However, this can be changed to allow for just saving, where the changes will be saved but not pushed out to clients, and just publishing, where the new saved changes will be pushed out to the client. Rollback will allow you to 'roll back' to one of the 10 most recently saved versions of the project. See also: Versioning

Update Project

Merges any changes from the gateway to the project, if for example there were multiple people working on the same project.

Import and Export

Allows you to import or export specific resources into or out of the project. Export global will export globally scoped resources, such as Alarm Pipelines.

Undo and Redo

Can be used to revert to the previous state, essentially removing the last change, or redoing it again after having been removed. This has a large queue that can be traversed but does not include every change. ie: Tag edits cannot be undone.

Cut/Copy/Paste/Duplicate

These function much the same as they do everywhere else. Most things in the Designer can be copied and pasted elsewhere, from individual components on the window to entire folders of windows. The difference is that when using paste with an object on a window, it will instead create a paste action, and allow you to move the mouse and select where you want to paste, clicking the mouse to confirm. Cancel Paste will cancel the paste action, while paste immediate will bypass the paste action, and instead immediately paste the object from where it was cut or copied from

Fine/Replace

Brings up the find and replace interface to allow you to find specific objects within the project. See also: Find and Replace

Select All

Selects all siblings in the same container as the currently selected component.

Select Same Type

Selects all components of the same type in the same container as the currently selected component.

Select Same Type in Window

Selects all components of the same type as the currently selected component, regardless of what container they are in.

Group Rename

Renames a group of components to a prefix with a number afterwords. For example, if your prefix is Button, it will rename all selected components Button (1), incrementing the number each component.

Delete

Deletes the currently selected component. This can also be done using the delete key.

Emulate Touchscreen

Simulates Touchscreen mode in the Designer to be able to test it without having to open a client.

Disable Overlays

Disables the red or gray overlays on components because of a bad Tag or binding, but only in this Designer session.

Reset Panels

Resets panels (Project Browser, Tag Browser, etc) to the default panel configuration.

Panels

Allows you to enable or disable certain panels within the Designer.

Toolbars

Allows you to enable or disable certain toolbars within the Designer.

Welcome Screen

Takes you to the welcome screen in the designer, or reopen it if it had been closed.

Grid Size

Allows you to select a grid size of 5 or 10.

Show Grid

Toggles the grid on and off.

Snap to Grid

Changes click-and-drag behavior to snap components to grid lines. This works even when Show Grid is off.

Show Guides

Shows any guide lines.

Snap to Guides

Changes click-and-drag behavior to snap components to any created guidelines.

New Guide

Adds a guide line to the current window.

Spotlights

Puts a highlighted border around components that have the selected spotlight. Bound objects will get a green highlight, objects with scripting will get a blue highlight, and invisible objects will get a pink highlight. If a component has multiple highlights, and both are enabled, it will alternate the colors throughout the highlight.

Dependencies

Shows the binding dependencies (as arrows) based on the selected component or components. Show Supporters will show all components that the currently selected component is bound to, Show Dependents will show all components that are bound to the currently selected component, and Show All will show all of the bindings, regardless of the selected components.

Designer Comms

The Comm settings allow you to select the level of communication the designer can have with the gateway. By default, this is set to Comm Read-Only, which will make any information coming from the gateway read only, but this can be changed to Comm Off which will turn prevent gateway communication, or Comm Read/Write, which will allow both read and write communications between the gateway. The default that the Designer opens at can be changed in the Project Properties. See also: Communication Modes

Properties

Opens up the Project Properties window, allowing project settings to be changed. See also: Project Properties

Event Scripts

Opens up the appropriate event script window, either client or gateway. These can also be accessed from the project browser. See also: Advanced Scripting

Preview Mode

Puts the Designer into preview mode, allowing you to interact with it like a client. See also: Previewing the Project

Preview Language

Determines the language that the Designer will revert to when in preview mode. See also Localization and Languages

Group

Grouping will place the currently selected components into a group. Ungroup will remove the grouping. See also: Working with Components

Convert to Container

Converts the selected group to a container. See also: Container

Lock

Locks or unlocks the selected component's size and position.

Layout

Set layout constraints for the selected component.

Size and Position

Change the size and position of the currently selected component.

Customizers

Allows you to select any of the available customizers for the currently selected component.

Scripting

Brings up the scripting window for the currently selected component

Security

Opens up the Security Settings Panel, allowing security to be placed on the selected components.

Translations

Brings up the Translatable Terms Panel, showing any translations for the selected component.

Move

The move commands move a component on its z axis, as in in front of or behind other components. It can be moved to the far back or front, or done in single steps.

Align

The align commands move all selected components to the edge of the furthest component. So if Align Left was selected, it would move all components to the leftmost component's edge.

Align Centers

Aligns all of the selected components either vertically or horizontally on their centers.

Align as Row

Aligns all of the the components on their centers as a row or stack, and will add padding between them that you can select. Normalizing them will change the size of all of the components to the first selected component.

Center

Centers the currently selected components relative to their parents either vertically or horizontally.

Rotate

Rotates the currently selected shape 90 degrees either right or left.

Mirror

Flips the component either vertically or hoizontally.

Union

Alters the first shape to be the combination of all selected shapes.

Difference

Alters the first selected shapes by removing the last selected shape from them.

Intersection

Alters the first shape to become a new shape consiting of the area they share.

Exclusion

Alters the first shape to become a new shape consiting of the area they do not share.

Division

Cuts the first shape into multiple shapes along the borders of other shapes.

To Path

Converts a shape to a simple path object.

Stroke

Converts the selected shape into a new shape defined by its stroke.

Console

The Output Console is the script-writers best friend. It is a dockable panel, and you can open it via the Tools > Console menu or the Ctrl-Shift-C keyboard shortcut. The output console is most frequently used to test and debug Python scripts in Ignition.

For example, by using the print function in your script, you can observe the inner workings of your script as it executes. If you executed the following script:

Note: The output console is also available in the Vision Client from Help > Diagnostics . See also: Scripting, Help Menu

Image Management

The Image Manager is available from the Tools > Image Management menu. This tool is a drag-and-drop browser that helps manage the images that are stored on the Gateway. It is important to realize that these images are shared across all projects: they are not stored inside a project itself. Use the toolbar at the top to do common tasks like uploading new images and creating folders. You can drag images and folders from your computer's desktop or hard drive into this window to easily upload new images to the Gateway.

You can also get to this tool by putting an Component Palette > Display > Image component on a window, and clicking the browse button on the image's Image Path property. See also: Images (png, jpg, gif)

Script Console

Opens up the Scripting Console window. This is where you can test scripts out. See also: Scripting Console

Database Query Browser

Opens up the Database Query Browser Panel, which will allow you to run SQL queries against your database connections. See also: Query Browser

Translation Manage

Opens up the Translation Manager Panel, which will allow you to configure translations. See also: Localization and Languages

Cloud Templates Browser

Opens up the Cloud Templates Browser window, allowing you to import your own templates, as well as templates other users have previously uploaded.

Symbol Factory

If you have the Symbol Factory module installed, you'll be able to open the Symbol Factory browser under the Tools menu in the Designer. You can browse through the symbols or use the convenient search function to find the symbol you need.

Once you find a symbol, you can drag-and-drop it into a window. Each symbol is dropped as a shape group. You will be able to un-group it or double-click into the group just as if you had drawn the symbol yourself using fundamental shapes. This means that you can alter the shape if you need to, or bind any colors inside the shape to a tag to make the shape dynamic.

Launch Project

Allows you to launch the project directly from the designer. You can either launch a staging or published windows client, or a published full screen or applet client.

Help

Opens up your web browser and takes you to this User Manual, for quick reference.

Tip of the Day

Reopens the Tip of the Day popup that by default appears when you first open the Designer.

Diagnostics

The Help menu in the Designer and the Vision Client has a Diagnostics window that contains a number of tabs each providing a useful troubleshooting feature. You can right-click on any of the tabs to show or hide the other tabs. These tabs or the troubleshooting features are as follows:

Performance Tab
Displays a number of small realtime charts that show various aspects of the currently executing Designer or Client's performance. These charts can be very useful to help troubleshoot performance issues, especially slow queries. One of the most common causes of query slowdown is simply running too many queries too frequently, and the # of Select Queries (Queries/Second) chart can help identify when this is occurring.

The statistics shown on this page apply to the current session only, you can see the Gateway statistics from the Status section of the Gateway.

Console Tab
Displays the Ignition Output Console.

Log Viewer
Displays the logged events for the current Designer or Client session. Whenever errors occur, they are logged and displayed in this tab. This is a good place to go when troubleshooting an issue, as any errors shown here may illuminate the cause of the problem. To view entries across all categories chronologically, uncheck the Group Categories checkbox.

Logging Levels
Determines the verbosity of a host of internal loggers. Most users will not use this tab unless prompted by a technical support representative.

Thread Viewer
Shows information about the currently running threads. Most users will not use this tab unless prompted by a technical support representative.

Connections
Displays the Gateway connection status as being connected or not.

About Ignition Designer

Provides information about the Designer such as the versions of the modules, java version, and gateway IP Address that the designer is using.