DB2 graphic  QMF Version 8

Creating wormholes

Wormholes are portals through which you can view a portion of another scene and then jump to that scene. Wormholes can enhance end user's decision-making by providing a glimpse into the destination scene. You can create wormholes of various sizes, showing varying amounts of the destination scene or viewpoint. Alternatively, you can create a wormhole without an associated event action. This type of wormhole is useful for creating navigation bars or other repeating elements. For more information, see Using wormholes for repeated elements.

The following figure illustrates the concept of a wormhole.

Figure 20. An illustration of a wormhole

You must create the source and destination scenes before you can create a wormhole between them.

When you create a wormhole, you can select how and whether the user enters the wormhole. Clear the Enter wormhole when clicked with the mouse check box in the Wormhole dialog box if:

To create a wormhole:

  1. Open the source scene.
  2. Double-click the Wormhole object on the Portals palette of the Palette Manager.
  3. In the Wormhole dialog box, select a destination scene and whether the user can enter the wormhole by clicking the mouse.
  4. Move the wormhole where you want it to appear and size it, as desired.
  5. Modify the wormhole properties, such as the zoom properties and scroll bars, as desired. For instructions, see the following section.

Wormhole properties

Wormholes have several properties that you might want to modify, including:

Using parameters with wormholes

When you create a wormhole, you might want to pass information captured in the source scene so that the display of the destination scene is dynamically changed. For example, you might want to set a global parameter based on a user action in the source scene--such as clicking an option button--and then pass that global parameter to the scene parameter.

See Making scenes dynamic with parameters for information on creating a scene parameter.

When you create a wormhole, QMF Visionary Studio also creates a child object, Wormhole.Scene Parameters, which lists the scene parameters defined for the destination scene. To set a scene parameter when a user enters a wormhole, select Wormhole.SceneParameters in the Object Inspector list and set the appropriate parameter to the value you want.

Note: To verify the default value of a scene parameter, you can set the parameter property as its own name (for example, =S_parameter).

The QMF Visionary Tutorial has an example of setting a scene parameter with a wormhole.


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timestamp Last updated: March, 2004