Defining Area Shapes

Diagrams User Guide

Diagrams : Working with Diagrams : Area Shape : Defining Area Shapes

Area can be represented by any 2-dimensional shape which is imported on a stencil as Area Shape using the Import Shape Wizard. After that it can be used as any other item by dropping it on the drawing. Area Shape can be located on the foreground and background page.

An Area Shape can be used just as a graphic frame not connected to any database element or it could have database representation. DB data against the Area Shape are stored as SCAREA element, which can be created below SCGROU. As any other element, Area can be defined in DB using Define command and also it can be defined on dropping the shape on drawing. To allow the second possibility, Define Area on Drop settings should be set to True:

Note:

The option is only applicable when General options->System configuration->System->Define shape on drop setting is set to True.

To disconnect Area Shape from database element Undefine command can be used. It is possible to specify different colours for defined and undefined Area shapes - see picture above.

The Primary/secondary shape mechanism can be used to contain several Area Shapes on different drawings referring to the same SCAREA element. For more information please see chapter Primary / Secondary Shapes.

Elements contained by defined Area Shape are referring to it via SCAREF. One item can refer to several Area Shapes. All items referring to SCAREA via SCAREF can be seen in Schematic Explorer tree as its secondary hierarchy:

By default the Area has the attributes relevant for the SCAREA element, but the set of attributes controlled by Area Shape can be extended in Diagrams Options. Select the Attribute Presentation click the Referenced Attributes button and then manually key in the attribute names:

To distinguish between attributes that can be propagated to shapes contained by the Area and those who should only be displayed in Area's Shape Data, the Propagate column should be used:

All attributes with the Propagate field checked will be controlled by Area and propagated to contained shapes. In addition it is possible to specify prefixes which would be set for both propagate and not propagate attributes in Shape Data. The prefixes can be set in diagrams options for Area Shape:

E.g. the above settings will take following effect in Shape Data:

As for other elements, the default attribute presentation settings for Area Shape can be overridden during Import Shape: