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Annunciator Class

Note: This API is now obsolete.

Wikipedia: An annunciator panel is a group of lights used as a central indicator of status of equipment or systems in an aircraft, industrial process, building or other installation. Usually the annunciator panel includes a main warning lamp or audible signal to draw the attention of operating personnel to the annunciator panel for abnormal events or conditions.

The Anunciator control provides a simple, standard method of displaying a status notification to the user within a Windows Forms application. Anunciators are best used with the companion AnnunciatorPanel control, although they can be placed anywhere on a Windows Form. The control can be used to provide simple On/Off status displays or can be configured to blink with various levels of urgency so that it can represent alarm conditions.

Example
An anunciator may represent the slewing state of a telescope. It would be represented by the word "SLEW". When the telescope is stationary, the anunciator remains inactive. When the telescope begins to slew, the anunciator is set to BlinkFast to alert the user that the equipment is in motion.

Each anunciator has active and inactive states. When inactive, the control displays in a subdued colour that is readable but does not draw attention. When active, the control will display in a stronger, more visible colour and will either have a steady state or will blink in one of a number of predefined cadence patterns. The cadence patterns are fixed and not user-definable, so that a standard 'look and feel' is promoted accross different applications.

Whilst the user is at liberty to choose different colours for both ActiveColor and InactiveColor, The default colours have been chosen to look similar to earlier applications that use similar displays and the defaults are highly recommended for most circumstances. The control's background colour is inherited from the parent control (which should normally be an AnnunciatorPanel) and is not directly settable by the user.

Inheritance Hierarchy
SystemObject
  SystemMarshalByRefObject
    System.ComponentModelComponent
      System.Windows.FormsControl
        System.Windows.FormsLabel
          ASCOM.ControlsAnnunciator

Namespace: ASCOM.Controls
Assembly: ASCOM.Controls (in ASCOM.Controls.dll) Version: 7.0.0-rc.0+0
Syntax
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[ObsoleteAttribute("An improved version of this class is available as a NuGet package at https://www.nuget.org/packages/TA.WinForms.Controls/")]
public sealed class Annunciator : Label, 
	ICadencedControl

The Annunciator type exposes the following members.

Constructors
 NameDescription
Public methodAnnunciator Initializes a new instance of the Annunciator class.
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Properties
 NameDescription
Public propertyActiveColor Gets or sets the color of the anunciator text when active.
Public propertyBackColor Gets or sets the background color for the control.
(Overrides ControlBackColor)
Public propertyCadence Gets or sets the cadence (blink pattern) of the anunciator. Different cadence patterns imply different levels of urgency or severity.
Public propertyForeColor Gets or sets the foreground color of the control. There is little point in setting this value directly as it will normally be constantly overwritten at runtime.
(Overrides ControlForeColor)
Public propertyInactiveColor Gets or sets the color of the anunciator text when inactive.
Public propertyMute Gets or sets a value indicating whether the control can respond to user interaction. For an anunciator, this affects how it displays. A disabled anunciator will always display in its InactiveColor regardless of other settings and it will not participate in cadence updates.
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Methods
 NameDescription
Public methodCadenceUpdate Updates the anunciator's display, if it has changed since the last update.
Public methodDispose Releases all resources used by the Component.
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See Also