Status Window
The View | Other Windows | Status Window menu option displays the Status window. You can use this window to preview commands and features while you create them from the Quick Start toolbar, during feature execution, when you create or edit dimensions, and when you click the item in the Edit window with the Status window open. See "Using the Quick Start Interface" chapter for details.
While similar in some ways to the Preview window, the Status window differs in these ways:
You don't specify tolerances or nominal values in this window. The window is for display only.
It provides a flexible way to display commands by tying into the template-based Reporting functionality.
It displays a dynamic preview for any command or dimension type, not just Location dimensions, as long as those commands are properly assigned inside your report and label templates.
This window functions the same as other dockable and scrollable windows. It displays scroll bars if the content within the window exceeds the window's size. Additionally, you can dock and undock this window at the bottom or top of the Graphic Display window when you double-click the window's title bar. You can also drag the window and then release it at the desired location. For details on docking and undocking user interface elements, see "Docking and Undocking User Interface Elements".
You can also hold down the Ctrl key while you drag the window to prevent it from docking.
The Status Window with the Quick Start Toolbar
The Status window displays the current status of any Guess Mode measurements, feature selections, and dimensions when you use the Quick Start toolbar. In the case of the screen shot shown above, this dimension has not yet been created, yet PC-DMIS provides a preview of the dimension in this window before you click Finish from the Quick Start toolbar.
The Status Window during Feature Creation or Execution
The Status window displays preview information of features not yet displayed in the Report window. This window utilizes the reporting template functionality to generate dynamic previews of commands during execution and creation. During feature creation, it only previews the feature if PC-DMIS is in Guess Mode.
The Status Window during Dimensioning
When you have one of the dimension dialog boxes open (either for legacy dimensions or for Feature Control Frame dimensions), the Status window provides you with a preview of what the dimension will look like based on the items currently selected in the dialog box. For example, if you are creating a Distance dimension and want to preview the distances as you select different items, that information appears in the Status window as you click on the items in the dialog box. If a dialog box isn't active, it reverts to its default functionality of displaying information for the last item that you clicked on in the Edit window.
Changing the Status Window Template
Since the Status window uses reporting templates to display its information, you can change what template it uses if you would like it to display different information. You can display any command in the Status window as long as a label template is assigned to that command in the report template (.rtp) file. You assign what report template this uses from the ReportTemplate registry entry in the StatusWindow section of the PC-DMIS Settings Editor. The default template it uses is TEXTONLY.RTP.
Using the Status Window in Accumulation Mode
During execution, the Status window usually only displays the most recently executed feature and dimension. However, you can have PC-DMIS show a list of accumulated executed items by setting the AccumulateStatusWindowResults registry entry in the Reporting section to True in the PC-DMIS Settings Editor. With this mode turned on, the contents in the Status window don't get removed until execution finishes. This allows you to show a running list of information during measurement routine execution. Also, while in this mode, PC-DMIS follows the TextReportObject's properties in the Status window's template to determine what information gets sent to the Status window (features, dimensions, alignments, and so forth).