MEDM Reference Manual

MEDM stands for Motif Editor and Display Manager. It is a graphical user interface (GUI) for designing and implementing control screens, called displays, that consist of a collection of graphical objects that display and/or change the values of EPICS process variables. The supported objects include buttons, meters, sliders, text displays/entries, and graphs. It has two modes of operation, EDIT and EXECUTE. Displays are created and edited in EDIT mode, and they are run in EXECUTE mode. MEDM is an EPICS Extension . Much information, including this manual in HTML, Postscript, and PDF, can be found in the Advanced Photon Source EPICS pages for MEDM:

http://www.aps.anl.gov/epics/extensions/medm/index.php.

New Features

The following items indicate significant new features in each release. Sucessive releases also have bug fixes and other enhancements.

Version 3.1

3.1.0

· You can specify macros for a Composite defined by a file.

· There is a new option, &X, for the Execute Menu and Shell Command.

· The Shell Command now has a label, similar to the Related Display.

· A new MEDM object, the WheelSwitch, has been added. The WheelSwitch is a Controller that displays a number value. It has arrow buttons above and below the digits that are used to change individual digits via the mouse or keyboard. Values may also be entered via the keyboard.

· The maximum number of items in the Related Display and Shell Command has been changed from eight to sixteen. If, however, you use more than eight items, the ADL file may not work correctly in previous versions of MEDM. Other values may be specified in siteSpecific.h.

· Count for the Cartesian Plot may come from a process variable.

· There is a Retry Connections item on the Execute-Mode Popup Menu. In cases where MEDM does not see beacons, such as often happens with a PV Gateway, it may not reconnect when a server comes back up. This button can force it to try to reconnect.

Version 3.0

3.0.2

· The Slider now goes left and down as well as right and up.

3.0.1

· Sexagesimal Text Formats as used by astronomers have been added to the Text Monitor and Text Entry.

Version 2.3

2.3.6

· Drag and Drop has been enhanced so the PV Names are also selected into the CLIPBOARD and PRIMARY X selection. This means you can paste them using the usual X cut and paste mechanisms; for example, by clicking Btn 2 in an Xterm.

· The initial positioning of displays and related displays has been fixed in a way that should be consistent and independent of the Window Manager and platform. Depending on the Window manager you use, this may mean the positions will be different from what they were previously. See the description of the Display and Related Display for more information on how displays are initially positioned.

· The logic for when there is no read access has been fixed. Objects are drawn as black rectangles when one of the associated process variables does not have read access. This is an uncommon situation.

· The Display List may be invoked from the MEDM main window as well as from the Execute-Mode Menu . It now includes the X Window ID of the MEDM main window. This helps in managing displays when there is more than one MEDM running.

· The Byte has been extended to 32 bits and converts its input to an unsigned long integer using the lower 32 bits. This makes it more useful in displaying hexadecimal values.

· MEDM may be built to use the JPT plotting package, developed at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, for the Cartesian Plot. This package has not been extensively tested with MEDM, however. Further, it is known that it does not implement all options of the MEDM Cartesian Plot correctly. See the Cartesian Plot for more details.

· The Cut-Copy-Paste keys (Shift-Del, Ctrl-Ins, and Shift-Ins, respectively) should work, and the position of pasted objects can be adjusted with the arrow keys as well as the mouse. See Menu Editing Operations for more details.

· MEDM no longer tries to connect to process variables for graphics objects and composite objects that have an otherwise unneeded PV associated with them that is there for the sole purpose of making them appear in the correct stacking order. That is, when both the Visibility and Color Mode, if relevant, are static. A side effect is that these objects will not appear white if the PV is invalid. See MEDM Objects for more information.

· There is no longer a requirement that a hidden Related Display be the same size as the associated graphic, or that it be under all graphics, or even that there be a graphic. This makes it easier to use hidden Related Displays with and in Composites.

· The axes in the Strip Chart can now be changed by the user, and defaults may be specified by the screen designer via the Strip Chart Data Dialog. In EXECUTE mode, the dialog box is brought up by the PV Limits item in the Execute Mode Menu.

· MEDM now pops up an existing display if it can, rather than creating a new one. The existing display must have the same name and macros. This applies to displays coming from the Related Display and displays specified with –attach on the command line. The old behavior can be restored in siteSpecific.h.

· Printing and Print Setup have been greatly enhanced and printing is now implemented on WIN32.

· There is an item on the Execute-Mode Popup Menu to mark hidden buttons (see Related Display ) by surrounding them with a flashing marquee. This is for use when the user cannot find the buttons. There is also, an item to popup the MEDM main widow in case you cannot find it.

· The Bar Monitor now has options for down and left as well as for up and right. (See the Direction attribute.)

· The Image has been enhanced to read GIF89a files (the latest GIF specification). It now handles multiple-frame GIFs. Multiple-frame GIFs can be set to animate or to display a specific frame based on a CALC expression that can include up to four process variables. This opens a wide range of creative possibilities, including implementing Color Rules. There is also a new EPICS extension called Simple GIF Animator (SGA) that allows you to create and change animated GIFs.

· The Dynamic Attribute used by graphics objects has been extended to have its visibility be based on a CALC expression that can include up to four process variables and more.

· The Composite now has a Dynamic Attribute . This means whole sections of the display can be made to appear, disappear, or change based on the values of process variables. Also, by grouping any single object, it can be made to be Composite and therefore have a Dynamic Attribute. The objects for a Composite may now be read from an ADL file in addition to being defined through grouping.

· There is a siteSpecific.h file, where certain defaults may be defined when MEDM is built.

· The location of the HTML help file used for menu and context-sensitive help in MEDM may be specified in siteSpecific.h and may be overridden by the environment variable MEDM_HELP_URL.

· Colormaps for a display may be specified in the ADL file, a separate file from the ADL file, or by using the default. The separate-file capability was present before, but was broken. The default display colormap may be specified in siteSpecific.h. Different displays may, as before, have different colormaps.

· Input and output for Text Entry and Text Monitor , when they are formatted for octal or hexadecimal, have been made more consistent and less ambiguous. On update, the numbers are displayed with a leading 0 (octal) or 0x (hexadecimal) to indicate their format, but numbers may be entered with or without the leading 0 or 0x and still be interpreted according to the format. As an example, entering 10 will result in 8 decimal if the Text Entry has format octal, in 16 decimal if it has format hexadecimal, and in 10 decimal otherwise. See the Text Entry and the Text Format attribute for more details.

· Unix type builds are deprecated, which means they may still work but should be avoided.

2.3.5

· The limits and the precision for objects such as Meters, Sliders, and Text Updates can be specified at design time and changed at run time, instead of being set by fields such as HOPR, LOPR, and PREC in the associated record.

· The Menu and Choice Button have been fixed so their size is what is specified at design time and what is stored in the ADL file. They are now the same size in both EDIT and EXECUTE mode and have the same look as other MEDM objects. The objects are now smaller than they used to be. The impact is more noticeable for small versions of these objects, and they may need to be resized on existing screens to look attractive.

· There is an alternative, SciPlot , to the commercial package, XRT/Graph, used for the Cartesian Plot. SciPlot does not have all of the features of XRT/Graph, but it does have enough features to use for most plotting needs. It has the advantage of being free and available for platforms where XRT/Graph does not exist. The WIN32 version of MEDM now supports the Cartesian Plot.

· The DESC and RTYP fields of a process variable have been added to the PV Info Dialog Box .

· There is a "Save All" option on the File menu.

· There is a command-line option (–noMsg) to prevent the Message Window from popping up.

· The shadows on all items with shadows are now consistent. Highlights have been removed from all objects. Sizes are consistent in EDIT and EXECUTE mode and are what is specified in the ADL file except for minimum size requirements.

· MEDM is supported for CDEV .

· MEDM can be built with either Host or Unix type builds.

2.3.4

· The default startup option is -local. There is a new option, -attach, to either attach to an existing MEDM if there is an eligible one, or to make the current one eligible for attachment if there is not. You need to use ‑attach to achieve the former default startup behavior. This behavior is primarily applicable for a control room, where it is typically set in scripts. Having the default option be -attach was confusing and not appropriate for individual users.

· The overlapping rectangles on the Related Display label do not appear if the label text starts with "-".

· The Meter, Bar Monitor, and Scale Monitor have been fixed to be the size specified. Formerly, they were two pixels wider, this space being used for the border. There is now no border, and the top and bottom shadows are the same as for Motif widgets, rather than being drawn with another, simplified algorithm. The Bar Monitor appears raised. It is not expected these changes for consistency will significantly affect most display screens.

· The Bar Monitor has a no decorations option. This allows making bar graphs.

· MEDM is available for the WIN32 platform.

2.3.3

· Help is now functional. Help from the menus and context sensitive help uses Netscape. If Netscape is not up, it takes a little while for it to come up after the first help request; however, once it is up, new help topics appear quickly inside the existing Netscape. Bubble help has been added to the Object Palette to identify the objects.

· There is a greatly expanded MEDM reference manual in both hardcopy and HTML versions. You are probably looking at one or the other of them now.

· There is now an Undo.

· New editing operations through both the mouse and the keyboard have been added. You can now select objects that are under other objects and can resize with Ctrl-Arrow keys.

· An optional grid has been added for editing. It can be toggled on and off for each display, and the spacing is adjustable. Snap to grid has been implemented.

· “Undo”, “Align”, “Space Evenly”, “Center”, “Orient”, “Size”, “Grid”, “Find Outliers”, “Refresh”, and “Edit Summary” have been added to the Edit menu .

· You can now change the foreground and background colors simultaneously for all grouped elements .

· There is a new PV Info feature.

· There is a new Execute Menu item on the Execute-Mode Popup Menu.

· A number of modifications have been made to the Related Display including executing it without showing the menu if there is only one item, the ability to replace the parent display, the ability to have labels rather than the overlapping squares on the menu button, and the ability to have a hidden button.

· The Cartesian Plot has a time format for the x axis, and there are several new user interactions , such as zoom, in EXECUTE mode.

· Shell commands , as well as commands on the Execute Menu , now accept special characters to include a process variable, include the name of the ADL file, or to prompt for user input.

· The MEDM main window, object palette, resource palette, and color palette now have fixed, default locations. You can change these locations with resources. See Initial Window Locations .

· The way in which MEDM starts up and connects to an existing MEDM has been made more robust. There should be minimal need to use -cleanup.

· You no longer have to respond to the “Do you really want to Exit?” dialog box. MEDM will still prompt you to save any unsaved files, however.

· Much of the coding has been rewritten to be clearer and better organized, and many bugs have been fixed.

History

MEDM was started by Mark Anderson at Argonne in 1990. It was originally partially based on the two programs, DM (Display Manager) and EDD (Edit Display), which had been developed at Los Alamos. These programs used the X library directly. MEDM handles both the construction and running of displays and has a Motif interface. Los Alamos has continued to develop DM and EDD, and today they have similar features to MEDM, but a different look and feel. The basic design and most of the development MEDM was done by Mark. Mark was a strong supporter of Motif in the days before it was as much of a standard as it is today.

Fred Vong took over MEDM in the fall of 1994, starting with Version 1.4.6. He made the program more responsive under heavy load and added a new ADL file format that used less space. Among other things, he added Channel Access security, rewrote the Strip Chart, added features to the Cartesian Plot, and added to the functionality of the Related Display. Fred was rewriting a large part of the coding to make it cleaner and improve the logic when he left Argonne in late 1996.

Ken Evans took over when Fred left starting with Version 2.3.0. He merged Fred’s development version with the distributed version, and finished debugging what Fred had started. He wrote this reference manual and is responsible for the new features described above, as well as for substantial reorganization and cleanup of the code.

In addition to these primary developers, parts of MEDM have come from many members of the EPICS community and from many people in the computing community who provide public-domain versions of their routines. Mark Rivers of the University of Chicago did the original port to the WIN32 platform and has provided much help in getting MEDM running on several other platforms. Jie Chen of the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility provided the initial implementation of SciPlot and all of the CDEV support.

Requirements

MEDM requires X Windows, Motif and EPICS. Motif Version 1.2 or above is supported. MEDM attempts to conform to the Motif Style Guide. Hence standard mnemonics and accelerators are available for interface navigation. Also help is available in standard forms, including context-sensitive help. Netscape is required for most of the MEDM help .

MEDM is developed and tested in an environment using the Solaris operating system and the TED desktop environment as distributed by TriTeal Corporation. TED is a desktop environment conforming to the Common Desktop Environment (CED) standards and uses Motif Version 3. At this time MEDM has no special enhancements to support CDE features apart from Motif or features that are special to Motif Version 3. The main parts of the program build with no compiler warnings even with CMPILR=STRICT on this system. The program should run with versions of Motif 1.2 or higher, but it may need modifications to run on other operating systems. We will try to incorporate changes necessary to support other systems if you let us know.

Command Line

MEDM can be executed from the command line in the general form:

medm [options] [display-files] [&]

Options are:

[X options]

[-help | -h | -?]

[-version]

[-x | -e]

[-local | -cleanup | -attach]

[-cmap]

[-bigMousePointer]

[-noMsg]

[-displayFont font-spec]

[-macro "xxx=aaa,yyy=bbb, ..."]

[-dg [xpos[xypos]][+xoffset[+yoffset]]

[&]

Parameters in square brackets [] are optional. Italicized parameters are to be replaced by user-specified terms. The other parameters should be typed literally. The command-line options are described below. The display-files are a list of one or more ADL files and should be after all the options, except that the –dg option can appear within the display-files. The “&” causes the process to be run in the background on UNIX, usually a good idea for a graphical program.

Command-Line Options

X options	The usual X command-line arguments, such as –display and –geometry.
-help or -?	Print usage.
-version	Print the version.
-x	Startup MEDM in EXECUTE mode.
-e	Startup MEDM in EDIT mode. (This is the default.)
-local	Do not participate in remote display protocol: Do not transfer operation to an already-running MEDM, and do not allow transfer of operation from any other MEDM. (This is the default.)
-attach	Do participate in remote display protocol: Transfer operation to an existing MEDM if there is one which is accepting transfers, or have this one assume responsibility for accepting transfers if there is not one.) This can lead to more efficient operation and is appropriate if many MEDM screens are running on one display, such as in a control room. You must give the first MEDM time to establish itself before attempting to attach to it. See Smart Startup .
-cleanup	Participate in remote display protocol, but ignore any existing MEDM and take over responsibility for accepting remote transfers.
-cmap	Use a private X colormap to circumvent the problem of not having enough colors available in the colormap. (This option may cause colormap flashing.)
-bigMousePointer	Use big mouse cursor.
-noMsg	Set the Message Window to not pop up when messages are received. (It can be brought up via the View menu on the MEDM main window if you need to see it.)
-displayFont font‑spec	Select aliased or scalable fonts. (See Fonts below.) The font-spec parameter can be “alias”, “scalable”, or an X font specification. When attaching, this argument should be the same for all participating MEDMs.
-macro name=value	Apply macro substitution to replace occurrences of $(name) with value in all command-line specified display list files.
-dg geometry	Specify the geometry (location and size) of the display window. The geometry syntax is similar to the X Windows ‑geometry option. (Note that ‑geometry specifies the location of the MEDM main window, and -dg specifies the location of the display windows.) The ‑dg option affects the ADL filenames following it.

Examples

Start up in default EDIT mode:

medm &

Start up executing two displays:

medm -x abc.adl def.adl &

Start up in EDIT mode with a new, local executable:

medm –local &

Start up using default scalable fonts:

medm -displayFont scalable &

Start up in execute mode, performing macro substitution of all occurrences of $(a) and $(c) in the display file, xyz.adl:

medm -x -macro "a=b,c=d" xyz.adl &

Start up in execute mode; resize the display window corresponding to abc.adl to 100 by 100 pixels and move it to the location, x = 100 and y = 100; and move the display window corresponding to def.adl to x = 400 and y = 150:

medm -x –dg 100x100+100+100 abc.adl –dg +400+150def.adl &

ADL Files

The files that contain the information for each display are called ASCII Display List (ADL) files and should have an extension of .adl. These files are created or modified when you save a display that you have edited. The files are readable and can also be edited by hand if you understand the file format. The file format is not described here, but it should not be difficult to make many types of changes without knowing it precisely. MEDM should be able to read files that were written in earlier formats, and files can be saved with the file format in use for Versions 2.1.x as well as the default format, which was initiated with Version 2.2.0.

The following logic is used to open ADL files from the command line and from Related-Display execution:

1. Try to open the file with the name as given. If the name is not an absolute pathname, then this means to try to open the file relative to the current working directory (the directory where MEDM was started).

2. If the file is being opened as a result of a related-display button, then try to open the file with the name prepended with the pathname of the display that contained the button.

3. Try to open the file with the name prepended by each pathname in the EPICS_DISPLAY_PATH.

Site-Specific Customization

Certain defaults, such as fonts and colors, may be specified in the siteSpecific.h file when MEDM is built. This provides an alternative to using the defaults in use at the Advanced Photon Source. Some of these defaults were decided a long time ago and cannot be changed because it would break too many existing screens. Often there are better alternatives today. In particular, the use of scalable fonts is highly recommended. See the siteSpecific.h file in the MEDM distribution for more information.

Connection Problems and Access Rights

If an MEDM object cannot connect to its associated process variables, that object is represented by a white rectangle, or in the cases of the Rectangle, Oval, Arc, Text, Polygon, and Polyline drawing objects, by coloring the object white. The objects are white whether the connection was never made or whether it was made and subsequently lost. They should revert to their normal state whenever the connection is valid. In some cases PV Info will give useful information, even if the connection is lost, and the objects are white.

Similarly, if there is are connections to the process variables associated with an object but one of them does not have read access, the object is represented by a black rectangle. The drawing objects are also represented by black rectangles, unlike the case for no connection where the object changes color. The reason is that drawing objects are too likely to be black normally. If the read access changes, the black rectangles appear or disappear as appropriate. Note that black rectangles imply there is a valid connection, just not read access. In other words, white overrides black. It should be kept in mind that the Image will be also black in EXECUTE mode if the Image Calc expression is invalid. It should not be hard to determine which is the cause of a black rectangle for the Image, however. Also note that non-updating graphics objects, even though they have a process variable associated with them, do not connect and hence do not turn black if the process variable does not have read access. Denial of read access is uncommon, so you may never see these black rectangles.

If the process variables associated with an object do not have write access, the cursor turns into a circle with a diagonal line through it when it is over a controller. You will not be able to change the value in this case.

PV Info is useful in troubleshooting any of these cases.

Fonts

MEDM uses several methods for font specification, invoked on the command line by the option:

-displayFont font-spec

where font-spec is one of {“alias “, “scalable “, or an X font specification , such as ‑bitstream‑courier‑medium‑r‑normal‑‑0‑0‑0‑0‑m‑0‑iso8859‑1}. The default is ‑displayFont alias.

Aliased Fixed Fonts

For default, fixed fonts, MEDM uses font aliases internally. This makes it possible to deal with server font variations. The aliased fonts are not in the default X database. To make these fonts available you need to do the following:

Aliased Fonts in X Windows

Copy the following lines into your miscellaneous fonts.alias file. The standard place is /usr/lib/X11/fonts/misc/fonts.alias. You can get your own particular font path from “xset q”. Note that these specifications are the standard MEDM font specifications as used at the Advanced Photon Source, but you are free to define another set of font specifications that gives better results for your machine or your own preferences. Keep in mind that displays may not look good if the fonts used are significantly different from those used by the designer of the display.

widgetDM_4 -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--8-60-100-100-c-50-iso8859-1

widgetDM_6 -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--8-60-100-100-c-50-iso8859-1

widgetDM_8 -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--9-80-100-100-c-60-iso8859-1

widgetDM_10 -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--10-100-75-75-c-60-iso8859-1

widgetDM_12 -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--13-100-100-100-c-70-iso8859-1

widgetDM_14 -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--14-110-100-100-c-70-iso8859-1

widgetDM_16 -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--15-120-100-100-c-90-iso8859-1

widgetDM_18 -sony-fixed-medium-r-normal--16-120-100-100-c-80-iso8859-1

widgetDM_20 -misc-fixed-medium-r-normal--20-140-100-100-c-100-iso8859-1

widgetDM_22 -sony-fixed-medium-r-normal--24-170-100-100-c-120-iso8859-1

widgetDM_24 -sony-fixed-medium-r-normal--24-170-100-100-c-120-iso8859-1

widgetDM_30 -adobe-times-medium-r-normal--25-180-100-100-p-125-iso8859-1

widgetDM_36 -adobe-helvetica-medium-r-normal--34-240-100-100-p-176-iso8859-1

widgetDM_40 -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--34-240-100-100-p-182-iso8859-1

widgetDM_48 -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--34-240-100-100-p-182-iso8859-1

widgetDM_60 -adobe-helvetica-bold-r-normal--34-240-100-100-p-182-iso8859-1

Then run “xset fp rehash” to install them. On Linux you may need to run “/etc/init.d/xfs restart” to restart the X font server. You can see if the fonts are there with “xlsfonts” or “xlsfonts | grep widgetDM”. You can get more information from any of the general-purpose books on X Windows.

Aliased Fonts in Exceed (An X Server for Microsoft Windows)

There are two main ways to install the MEDM fonts in Exceed. For both ways you go to the Xconfig utility for Exceed and then go to Font Management. How you preceed from there may depend on your version of Exceed. The following directions are for Exceed 8 and should work at least through Exceed 10. In the Font Management dialog choose Edit.

1. Adding a font server is the easiest approach, but only works if you have a font server available. Choose the “Add Font Server…” button, and configure the server by filling in the dialog box. See your system manager for the parameters, which may be something like tcp/helium:7100, which is the suggested server and port for the Advanced Photon Source. The font server must be available through your network, and the MEDM font aliases must have been installed on it, probably as above for X Windows.

2. You can install the font aliases locally in Exceed. Choose the “Import Aliases…” button. You will need a text file, perhaps called medm.ali, with the above aliases in it. Type in the location of this file for the “From:” entry, and then be sure to select “(All Directories)” for the “To:” entry. (It is not the default.)

There are more complete directions including pictures on the EPICS page for MEDM:

http://www.aps.anl.gov/asd/controls/epics/EpicsDocumentation/ExtensionsManuals/MEDM/MEDMFonts.htm,

and you can download medm.ali from there if you want to use the Advanced Photon Source font choices.

Aliased Fonts for other Platforms and X Servers

You will have to determine how to install font aliases for your particular system. You can use the directions above as a guideline.

Default Scalable Fonts

The user can invoke MEDM with the -displayFont scalable option. MEDM then uses the default Speedo outline font (bitstream) supplied by the X11R5 font server. Users should add a font server to their font path via:

% xset +fp tcp/:

for example:

% xset +fp tcp/phebos:7100

% medm -displayFont scalable

You can get the name of the font server by running “fsinfo” on the machine that has the server.

User-Specified Scalable Fonts

The user can invoke MEDM with the -displayFont option. MEDM then uses the specified font supplied by the X11R5 fontserver. This font should be an XLFD name (all 14 hyphens, other fields can be wildcarded though) and scalable (i.e., point and pixel size = 0). Users should add a font server to their font path as above.

For example:

% medm –displayFont -bitstream-courier-medium-r-normal--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-1

Initial MEDM Window Locations

The MEDM main window, the object palette, the resource palette, and the color palette are located at the right edge of the screen by default. The spacing between them depends on the window manager title bar and may not be correct for all window managers. They can be changed using the standard format for X Windows geometry by the following resources (shown with typical values):

Medm.mainMW.geometry: -5+5

Medm.objectS.geometry: -5+137

Medm.resourceS.geometry: -5+304

Medm.colorS.geometry: -5-5

You could put these lines in your .Xdefaults file, for example.

Palettes

Object Palette

Resource Palette

Color Palette

MEDM Objects

The objects that can be used in MEDM fall into four categories, Graphics, Monitors, Controllers, and Special. Graphics are items such as text, lines, and images. Monitors are objects that monitor the state or values of process variables. Controllers are objects that change the values of process variables. There is only one miscellaneous object, the Select Arrow, which is not really an object but an editing mode.

Some objects are widgets . This means they have their own X window, which is a child of the drawing area of the display. The Graphics objects, such as the Rectangle, Oval, Image, etc. are drawn on the drawing area. Every object with a widget lies above the drawing area and hence above all drawn objects. Further, all graphics objects that are updating because their color or visibility depends on a process variable or because they are an animated Image will appear above non-updating graphics objects.

If you want a non-updating graphic object to be properly stacked among updating objects, enter something (for example, "Dummy") for Channel A but leave its Visibility Mode and Color Mode (if the object has one) as Static. It does not matter what is entered for Channel A. MEDM will not search for the process variable, but will treat the object as updating so that it will be drawn in the proper stacking order when other updating objects change.

In EDIT mode, all of these objects are represented on the Object Palette , and this palette can be used to create new instances of the objects on the display.

Object Index

Graphics	Monitors	Controllers	Special
Arc	Bar Monitor	Choice Button	Composite
Image	Byte Monitor	Menu	Display
Line	Cartesian Plot	Message Button
Oval	Meter	Related Display
Polygon	Scale Monitor	Shell Command
Polyline	Strip Chart	Slider
Rectangle	Text Monitor	Text Entry
Text