#### Common Properties

The following are some common properties used on various objects, and they make up the core set of properties for many other objects. Properties specific to an object are documented in that object's documentation. Events properties are detailed in the "About Events" topic.

Common Standard and Advanced Properties

Common Properties | Description
(Object Code) | Unique name that identifies an object in a template or form. Whenever you need to access a property or method of an object using the BASIC language, use the following syntax: {Object Code}.{property or method name}
Accelerator | This allows you to define the letter to use in conjunction with the ALT key to create an accelerator for the control. The letter or symbol defined should be unique from those used for other accelerators (including the accelerators on the menu bar). This is used with most form controls.
Alignment | Text alignment within the text object’s defining rectangle.
Auto Size | This determines whether or not the object sizes itself automatically based on the length of the text it contains. If set to YES the object and Word Break is set to NO, the text object will automatically adjust its width. If set to YES and Word Break is YES, the text object will automatically adjust its height.
AnchorSnaps | Field which allows you to create, delete or modify snap points by using the Enter Snap Points dialog box. Snap points are found on the ellipse, rectangle, text box, or bitmap image objects. You can connect Line or Polyline objects to an object's snap points by dragging the tip of the line onto the displayed blue snap point.

Once connected, when you drag the object to a new location, the resulting line remains connected to the snap point, rotating, elongating, and shrinking as necessary. This feature is helpful when you need to create a "leader-line" that constantly points to an object that you'll frequently be moving.

To display snap points, from the Layout toolbar click the View Snap Points icon:

BackColor | Background color of the object. This color is used to fill the object’s defining rectangle. Nil - This stands for no value. It means the background will be transparent, allowing other colors of objects behind this object to show through. By default, anything with a BackColor property will be set to Nil.

Technically, setting the color to Nil actually defines the color as RGB(255,255,254). That color is then made transparent within the Report window.

If you try to specify a color of RGB(255,255,254), PC-DMIS will automatically set it to RGB(255,255,255), a non-transparent color. This will not affect what you visually see.

Be aware that if your label has a bitmap image that uses the color RGB(255,255,254), that color will be made transparent inside the Report window.

BorderStyle | Style of border drawn around the object.
Bottom | Distance, in pixels, of the bottom of the object’s rectangle from the top of the template or form.
CursorPointer | Cursor displayed when the user drags the mouse over the object.
Enable | Enable or disable the object. A disabled object may still be visible, but will not respond to user input.
Font | Font used for text rendered in the object.
ForeColor | Foreground color of the object. In the case of the text object, specifies the text color.
Group | Documentation Pending. This is used with form objects, such as buttons, check boxes, radio buttons and so on. (Ask Steve)
HatchStyle | This sets the type of pattern (or hash) to use to with the object. Available patterns are: Horizontal Vertical Diagonal Reverse Diagonal

Cross

Diagonal Cross

Objects that use this include: Border, Ellipse, Histogram, TextVar

HelpContextID | This is the context ID of a specific help topic to call. This is often used in conjunction with the Help button type which invokes WinHelp( ).
Layer | This assigns the current object to the selected layer.
Left | Distance, in pixels, of the left side of the object’s rectangle from the left side of the template or form.
LineStyle | This changes the objects line style (or border style) to Solid, Dash, Dot, Dash-dot, and Dash-dot-dot.
LineWidth | This sets the line's (or border's) width in pixels.
Orientation | Orientation of the text inside the object. Horizontal text flows from left to right. Vertical Up flows from bottom to top. Vertical Down flows from top to bottom.
Padding | This property adds pixels of white space around the text by the given amount.
PenWidth | Width of the pen used to draw the object. In the case of the text object, the pen width only affects the border drawn around the text.
Right | Distance, in pixels, of the right side of the object’s rectangle from the left side of the template or form.
ShadowStyle | This sets the location of the 3D shadow on the resulting object. Available locations are: Top/Left, Bottom/Right, or None.
Tag | Place holder that stores user-defined data.
Text | Text appearing in the text object. You can also type an ampersand symbol (&) in front of any alphanumeric character in this field to create a shortcut key (shown as an underlined character) that when pressed with the ALT key in Run Mode, causes that control to immediately have the focus. If you plan on using a lot of shortcut keys, you can ensure they are unique by using the Edit | Layout | Check Mnemonics menu item in Edit Mode.
Tabstop | This determines if pressing the TAB key will cycle to the object. This is used with form objects, such as buttons, check boxes, radio buttons and so on.
ToolTipText | Text displayed when you move the mouse over the object inside Run mode.
Top | Distance, in pixels, of the top of the object’s rectangle from the top of the template or form.
ValueID | This contains the value of the ID or on objects where it's supported, it contains the CurPage and NumPages variable. You get and set this property using the control. This is used with most of the form objects.
Visible | Visibility state of the object. A value of 1 corresponds to visible, 0 to hidden.
Word Break | Determines whether or not the text object can hold more than one line of text. If set to YES, then text strings that exceed the width of the object container will wrap within the object container. If set to NO, then text strings remain on a single line.
PC-DMIS Commands | (Appears only for objects added to the Custom Report Editor) Adds or Removes command references to existing objects in your report. Select an object in your report, and select this property. The PC-DMIS Commands dialog box appears. PC-DMIS Commands dialog box

By default, all the commands in your part program appear in the expandable and collapsible list on the left. However, for some objects, namely the Label object, GridControlObject, Analysis object, and Histogram object, some commands may not be valid. In those cases they will be grayed in the list. You can choose to hide any grayed out commands in the left-hand list by selecting the Show only valid commands check box.

The right-hand list displays all the commands referenced by the object.

1. Select the commands from the left-hand list that you want the selected object to reference. They will appear in the right-hand list if the object supports taking multiple commands. However, In most cases, you will only be able to select one command.

2. Click OK. The dialog box closes and PC-DMIS now references the new command in the selected object.

This essentially provides an alternate approach to updating an object to use different data from the part program. See "Dragging and Dropping Information into a Custom Report" for the usual way of updating objects.

For the CADReportObject or the AnalysisObject, features whose check boxes are marked will be added to the object. Features whose check boxes are cleared will be removed from the object. If nothing is marked, PC-DMIS displays items according to the HideAllPointsonReport and HideAllMeasuredFeaturesOnReport registry entries, located within the Reporting section of the PC-DMIS Settings Editor.

For objects that support multiple commands (such as the GridControlObject), this dialog box lets you change the order of referenced commands.

PC-DMIS References | (Appears only for objects added to the Custom Report Editor) Tracks the commands referenced by the selected reporting object. During report generation, for each command, PC-DMIS checks the command references of each object. If that object indicates that it has a reference to the command being processed, PC-DMIS sends the command data to that object.

Most objects only support one command at a time, but some objects can support data from multiple commands (such as the GridControlObject). If you drag and drop commands into the Custom Report Editor, PC-DMIS takes care of managing the references for you internally. You should only need to use this property if you decide to have manual control over which commands are referenced for some reason.