HUD Editor

The HUD editor allows you to create your own Heads Up Displays (HUDs) to be used during a chuteside job. Each HUD can have multiple pages and each page can be a pre-defined one or a custom one where you decide what information is displayed.

When editing a HUD, the HUD Editor window is where you will see what the HUD window will look like. The HUD Editor Palette window is used to help out during the editing process.

HUD Editor Window General Information

Everything inside the blue border in this window represents what the HUD window will look like in an actual job. Use the left and right arrows at the top to move between pages. You can also click the title between the arrows to go directly to a page, just as with a real HUD. Every page will have some demonstration data on it so you have a sense of what each page will look like.

Except for custom pages, you can only view each page in the HUD (ie. the buttons inside the HUD do not work). In custom pages, you can select, move, and resize objects directly. Or you can use the palette window. This is explained in more detail in a moment.

You can choose what size you would like the HUD to be by simply resizing the window. With small sizes this can be somewhat finicky and we are working to correct this.

When you are finished editing the HUD, click the Save button. Or click the Cancel button to ignore any changes you made.

The HUD Editor Palette Window

The HUD Tab

In this tab you give the HUD a name. This is the name that will identify the HUD when you are adding HUDs to a chuteside job definition. It must be unique.

You can also directly enter a size for the HUD window, although this can be finicky and we recommend directly resizing the HUD Editor window instead. If you do use these fields, you can enter a number directly, or use the Up Arrow and Down Arrow keys to increase or decrease the value. Hold the Shift key down to change the value by 10 pixels at a time.

The Pages Tab

This tab contains a list of all the pages in the HUD. A HUD must have at least one page. To add another page, click the + button and select which type of page you would like to add. It will be added to the bottom of the list and the page will be selected in the HUD Editor window.

You can remove a page by selecting it and clicking the - button. You can also rearrange the pages by dragging and dropping within the list. The top page will be the first to show up during a job.

Object Library Tab

The object library is a list of all the objects that can be placed on a custom page. When a custom page is displayed in the HUD Editor window, you can drag an object from the library onto the custom page and the object will be created where you drop it.

There are two types of objects: Data and Drawing. Data objects are objects that will have their information updated during the job for each animal. For example, the scale weight will show the animal's weight during the job. Drawing objects are static objects such as lines, shapes, and labels which do not change during the job. Click the Data or Drawing radio buttons to toggle the list between the two types of objects.

You can use the search field to quickly narrow the list of objects based on what you enter.

If you drag an object to a custom page, the top left of the object will be where you dropped the object. You can drag multiple objects at the same time by selecting multiple objects and the holding down the Alt (Option on Mac) key down while you drag them. Fusion will then lay them out in the order they are in the list. Note that whether you drag one or more objects, if it is a Data object Fusion will automatically create the label, the data field object, and, where appropriate, the units label. You can delete the objects you don't want.

Page Objects Tab

When objects are selected in a custom page, this tab will show the object's attributes. Only the attributes that apply to the selected objects will show up. If more than one object is selected, only the attributes that apply to all the selected attributes will show up. If the values are the same for every object, you will see that value. If they are different for any object you will see a blank or zero for the value.

When you make a change to any of the attributes, it will be applied to all the objects that are selected. Note that in the numerical fields you can also use the Up Arrow or Down Arrow keys to increment or decrement by one or, if you also hold the Shift key down, by 10. As you make any changes, the HUD Editor window will be updated immediately to reflect the changes.

The following explains more about each of the attributes you can change for the various objects:

Object Name. Each object can have a name, but it does not need to be unique. Fusion will give objects a default name when you drop them on the page. You can leave the name unchanged if you like.
Label/Sample Data String. For label objects, this field will be the text that is displayed by the object. For data objects, this is sample data that will be displayed during editing so you can get an idea of how it will look during a real job. You can change these values as you like.
Replace "*" With. For a label object, you can have Fusion replace any *'s in the label with the value chosen from this list. This allows you to handle units and custom field title changes without having to update your HUDs.
Position Fields. The Left, Top, Width, and Height fields can be used to determine the position and size of the objects.
Font Information. You can change the font related information for labels and data objects. Note that for the font name you can specify more than one font name, each separated by commas. When Fusion draws the text it will choose the first font that exists on the computer it is drawing on. If no font name is found, it will default to the computer's system font. This allows you to set the font name to work on multiple computers even when they don't all have the same fonts on them. You can use the button to the right to help you do this.
Border Width/Stroke Width. For shapes you use this field to set the thickness of the line or the outside border of the object.
Border Color/Line Color. For shapes this field will determine the color of the line or the outside border of the shape.
Background Color. Some shapes let you change the color of their background.
Background Opacity. Some shapes let you change the opacity of their background. The lower the opacity, the more objects underneath them can be seen.
Line/Foreground/Text Opacity. For labels and text objects, the text opacity sets the opacity of the text itself. For lines, it sets the opacity of the line. For other shapes, it sets the opacity of the foreground or outline of the object.
Rotation. Any object can be rotated around its center. This value is in degrees (0-360).

Fusion will let you assign some alternate attribute values to an object based on some criteria. For example, you may be displaying the temperature of the animal and wish it to turn red if it is above a certain value. This can be accomplished using the bottom attributes which we call alternate attributes.

To turn on the alternate possibilities, make sure the checkbox is turned on. The rest of the attributes can be read as an if/then statement. Ie. If some data is greater than/less than/etc. some other data, then change these attributes. Let's go over each part of this statement:

If. You first choose which data from the job you want to compare. This is the same list of values you can draw on the custom page. It is also the same list that can be used as criteria during job sorting. Note the "as" part of the phrase. Fusion knows how to treat most data objects (as text, number, or date) for proper comparisons. But some data can be treated as either text or numbers. Custom animal IDs are one example. In these cases make sure you choose the correct option here so the comparisons work the way you expect them to.
Is. Now choose how the values will be compared. The regular options (<, <=, =, >, >=, and Not) are available for all data types. For text types, you can also choose In List and Not In List. After you have chosen how you want to compare the values, you then choose the other value being compared. With the first radio button chosen, you can enter the value directly (or add values to the list). If you choose the next radio button you can compare to another of the data values in the job as it is running. If you choose the last radio button, you can choose from a list of variables as defined in Fusion Office → Utilities → Saved Variables. (This last one can be useful for comparing against things like the current date.)
Then change the following object attributes. Depending on the object, certain attributes can then be changed if the above statement is true. For example, the opacity settings can be used to show or hide an object based on the above statement being true or false.

Interacting Directly With Custom Pages

When you are viewing a custom page in the HUD Editor window, you can directly affect the objects in the same way that most drawing type editors work. Here are the features the editor has:

Selecting Objects. To select an object, Click it. You can select multiple objects by Shift-Clicking each object. If you Shift-Click an object that is already selected, it will become de-selected. You can also drag a rectangle from an empty place on the page and any objects that are partly under the rectangle will become selected. Finally, it you have objects that are layered on top of each other, you can Control-Click (Command-Click on Mac) the object and Fusion will select the object underneath the currently selected one (hold the Shift key down to select them both). This will work multiple times if there are many objects layered on top of each other.)
Moving Objects. After selecting one or more objects, click and drag inside one of them to move them all to a new location. You can also use the Arrow keys to move the objects one pixel at a time or, if the Shift key is held down while using the Arrow keys, ten pixels at at time.
Resizing Objects. You can resize an object by dragging one of the resize handles placed at each corner of a selected object. You can only resize one object at at time, even if multiple objects are selected. Make sure you don't resize objects such that they invert or they will seem to disappear!
Right-Click. You can Right-Click anywhere inside the custom page for a list of additional options. These options allow you to align multiple objects in various ways and move them closer to the front or back of the stack order. You can also have Fusion draw a grid (and control the size of the grid) to help in lining up objects. You can turn the alternate view on and off to help you see what the various objects will look like under different conditions. And you can delete objects.
Undo. Fusion keeps track of the changes you make to a custom page. The last option under the Right-Click menu is Undo which will undo the last change you made. You can also use the Control-Z (Command-Z on Mac) shortcut to undo.

Getting Here

You can open this window by creating or editing a HUD from the HUD List window.