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Dynamic Bindings and Notifications

Any plain Shape's style can either stay fixed (Static mode) or follow a live value (Dynamic mode). This page explains exactly what a Shape can bind to and why, then covers Notifications, the threshold-alerting system built on top of the same live values.

Static vs. Dynamic​

Every plain Shape's style menu (see Shapes and Styling) has a Static / Dynamic toggle:

  • Static: the border, background, and text colors you set are exactly what always shows.
  • Dynamic: pick a live source from Depends on, and the Shape's look follows it instead. What "follows it" means depends on the kind of source:
    • Bound to a Switch-kind source (a Switch, Pushbutton, Blinker, or Valve): pick one full style snapshot for its off state and another for its on state. The Shape flips between the two the instant the source does.
    • Bound to a Slider-kind source or a Tag: pick one of three modes.
      • Gradient: smoothly blends one color into another across the source's own min..max range.
      • Stepped: define your own color bands, each starting at a threshold you choose (not evenly divided; you control exactly where each band starts).
      • Level: fills the Shape from one edge like a liquid level, in a direction you choose. This is the only mode a Gauge or Liquid tank can use, since those two always operate in Dynamic mode with no static look at all.

Gauges and Liquid tanks are always in Dynamic mode; every other plain Shape starts Static and switches over only when you choose to.

What can a Shape depend on?​

This is the part that trips people up, so it's worth being precise about:

  • A same-group Switch or Slider: only visible if the Shape you're styling is itself a member of a Group, and only its own sibling members in that same Group are offered. A loose, ungrouped Shape has no such siblings at all, even if an identical Switch sits right next to it on the canvas. Put both inside the same Group first (see Organizing and Reusing Screens) if you want one to depend on the other.
  • A Valve, anywhere on the canvas: available to any top-level (ungrouped) Shape, since a Valve is never itself a member of a group.
  • A live OpSee Tag: always available, to any Shape, grouped or not. A Tag isn't a canvas object, so the "same group" restriction never applied to it.
  • A Math block operation's own result: always available too, the same as a Tag (see Controls, Indicators, and Machines).

If Depends on shows a hint that nothing is eligible instead of a picker, it means none of the rules above are currently satisfied, most often because the Shape isn't in a Group yet and you were expecting to bind it to a plain Switch or Slider.

Turn on Vue > Show links to draw a small arrow from every dynamically-bound Shape to whatever it depends on, so you can visually trace a screen's own data flow at a glance instead of opening each style menu one by one.

Notifications​

Any Shape with a genuine live value (a Switch, Slider, Tag-bound Shape, Gauge, Math block operation, and so on) can carry its own notification rules, configured from its style menu's Notifications button.

Each rule has:

  • An operator: greater than, less than, greater or equal, less or equal, equal, or not equal
  • A threshold value
  • A color, shown on the alert
  • A message, your own free-form text

What happens when a rule fires​

The instant a rule's condition becomes true, a card appears in the bottom-right corner of the editor (or the operator viewer). Clicking it once expands it, showing exactly which condition fired (for example, "the value of Tank Level was > 90"); clicking the expanded card a second time dismisses it. A notification never auto-clears on its own, even once the condition stops being true: it stays until someone actually dismisses it. This two-step dismissal is deliberate, so a glance at a collapsed card can't accidentally clear it with a single misclick.

Reviewing rules across the whole screen​

Project > Notification list shows every rule on the current Screen at once, grouped by the Shape it belongs to, so you can review or edit any of them without hunting down which Shape it's attached to. Adding a brand new rule still happens from that Shape's own style menu, since a new rule needs a Shape to attach to.

Notification historic​

Project > Notification historic is a persisted log of every notification that has ever actually fired, kept in your own browser (not synced across devices), capped at the most recent 500 entries. Use it to review what happened while you weren't watching, including how long each condition stayed active.