General

What are dynamic shapes?

Dynamic shapes enable the dynamic positioning of shapes that are allocated to ConnectMaster elements.

Why dynamic shapes?

In the case of standard shapes, a user must always proceed as follows:

1.Open stencil (if not already opened)

2.Select master shape

3.Drag it to the document

4.Depending on the type of the master shape, CM then provides a selection for a location, component, etc.

However, if the user would like first to select the ConnectMaster element and then the master shape, this is not possible with standard shapes. Furthermore, the symbol allocations (defined in the defaults under “CM Elements -> Symbols“) also need to be accessed when creating drawings manually.

The dynamic shapes were therefore created to realise the following workflow:

1.Drag (any) shape to the document

2.Select an element via ConnectMaster

3.If an exact predefined allocation Drawing Type/Element/Name -> Master Shape already exists, then use this master for drawing.

4.If there is no allocation, or more than 1, then an interactive query is triggered to find out which master shape is to be used.

Hence dynamic shapes only have one flag that shows which ConnectMaster they correspond to. Otherwise they have no ConnectMaster-specific characteristics whatsoever!

Please note!

Dynamic shapes may not be used in automated drawing actions (e.g.: creation of networks)!

VarShapes.vss

ConnectMaster provides dynamic shapes in the stencil “VarShapes_de.vss” with the title “Defined Symbol Allocations”. The name of a dynamic shape is always put in “<>” brackets.

The following dynamic shapes exist:

Symbol

Name

<Location>

<Location Group>

<Component>

<Cable>

<Empty Pipe>

<Strip>

<Clamp>

<End Device>

<T-Splice>

<MUX>

<Card>

<Container>

<Shaft>

<Phys. Path>

<Signal>

<Bundle>

<Transport Container>

<Filter>