Visionary User's Guide

Visionary User's Guide
Chapter 1: Getting Started with Visionary

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Visionary Studio

You use Visionary Studio to build and publish Visionary worlds. Visionary Studio provides a user interface with multiple windows. Figure 1-1 shows the complete Visionary Studio environment.

Inside the main window, you can use the following task-specific windows:

World Manager. Use this window to insert objects into a Visionary world and manage its contents. See page 1-9.
Scene Editor. Use this window to design and test a scene. See page 1-15.
Data Element Editor. Use this window to design an individual data element and test it in a scene. See page 1-16.
Query Editor. Use this window to modify, create, and test an SQL query by using visual building blocks or text editing. See page 1-14.
World Structure Editor. Use this window to display a diagram of the structure of a Visionary world. You can also use it to set parameters and to search for objects in a world. See page 1-17.
Object Inspector. Use this window to modify the properties and behaviors of a selected object. See page 1-18.
Output window. Use this window to display status and error messages when you run a scene or data element. See page 1-19.

In addition, toolbars allow quick access to standard Microsoft Windows operations and Visionary navigation functions.


Figure 1-1 The Visionary Studio Environment with All Windows Open

The World Manager

The World Manager is a dockable window with tabbed pages. You use the World Manager both to manage the organization of open worlds and their objects and to insert and modify objects.

The World Manager has three tabbed pages:

Worlds shows the structure and organization of open worlds.
Data provides a palette of tools you can use to create queries and displays information about the contents of the database to which you are connected.
Graphics provides palettes of graphic objects you can use to build scenes.

Each of the pages contains various panels of objects you can use to build Visionary worlds. Figure 1-2 illustrates the World Manager interface.


	Figure 1-2 World Manager Pages and Panels

The Worlds Page

The Worlds page allows you to manage the contents and organization of open Visionary worlds. The Worlds page has three panels, as illustrated in Figure 1-3:

Scenes. A tree view that shows global parameters, scenes, and scene contents.
Data Sources. A tree view that shows the queries you can use to provide data for scenes in each world.
Resources. A tree view that shows other global resources defined for use in each world.

To display a panel, click its corresponding button in the World Manager.

Each panel of the Worlds page displays open worlds and a hierarchical display of objects.

Figure 1-3
Worlds Page Panels

The Data Page

The Data page provides tools for creating data sources for your Visionary world. The Data page has two panels, as illustrated in Figure 1-4:

Query Design. A palette of query blocks you can use in the Query Diagram view of the Query Editor.
Database Contents. A hierarchical display of the schema of the database to which you are connected.

To display a panel, click its corresponding button in the World Manager.


	Figure 1-4 Data Page Panels

The Graphics Page

The Graphics page contains five panels of graphic objects that you can use to build scenes. The panels of the Graphics page are illustrated in Figure 1-5:

Primitives. A palette of objects, such as text, rectangles, or pictures, that you can use statically or associate with a column of data returned from the database.
Layouts. A palette of display formats that you can use to display data in a scene.
Data Symbols. A palette of symbols that you can use to represent data points in layouts.
Controls. A palette of ActiveX controls that you can use in a scene.
Connectors. A palette of objects you can use to create graphic links between data points in layouts.

To display a panel, click its corresponding button in the World Manager.


	Figure 1-5 Graphics Page Panels

The Query Editor

The Query Editor has three views that help you modify, build, and test data sources for use in your Visionary world. A data source is the information returned by an SQL query.

The three views of the Query Editor are:

Query Diagram. This view displays a block diagram of the query structure for you to begin constructing a data source.
SQL Text. This view displays the actual SQL syntax of the query for you to modify.
Data Sheet. This view displays the results of the query in columns and rows for you to view and test your data source.

Figure 1-6 shows the Query Diagram view of the Query Editor.


	Figure 1-6 Query Editor (Query Diagram View)

The query diagram in Figure 1-6 generates the following SQL syntax:

select R0.empid as empid, R0.firstname as firstname, R0.image 
as image, R0.lastname as lastname, R0.title as title from 
employees R0 where R0.empid = :EmployeeID

Figure 1-9 shows a partial view of the World Structure Editor illustrating parameter wiring.

Figure 1-9
World Structure Editor (Structure View)

In addition to the Structure view, shown in Figure 1-9, the World Structure Editor has a Pseudocode view that lists in text format all the objects in a world and the current settings for their properties.

The Object Inspector

The Object Inspector is a dockable window that displays the properties and events of objects in an active Scene Editor or Data Element Editor window. For example, when the Scene Editor is active, the Object Inspector displays the properties of the scene itself and provides a drop-down list of any objects or layouts placed on the scene. When the Data Element Editor is active, the Object Inspector displays the properties of the objects used to represent data points, such as the data symbol in a scatter chart or the polyline on a linear map.

The Object Inspector has two tabbed pages: Properties and Events (see Figure 1-10). In the Properties page, the properties for the selected object are listed on the left, and their settings on the right. You can change the settings to constants, or they can be variable values based on: