Accusoft.NotateXpress13.Net
Overview of NotateXpress

NotateXpress encapsulates powerful annotation capabilities within a set of classes:

NotateXpress Class

NotateXpress is a windowless control that provides annotation capability to an ImagXpress® client. In order to annotate an image being viewed with ImagXpress, the application must declare a NotateXpress object. When the ClientWindow property is set, the NotateXpress object is associated with a client ImageXView object to annotate.

The properties and methods within the NotateXpress class also enable the application programmer to specify global annotation behaviors, such as definition of the toolbar menus, cursors and icons to be displayed, and annotation loading and saving options.

Each NotateXpress object has an associated collection of Layers, on which annotations are placed.

Layer Class

NotateXpress maintains annotations on layers. Layers act like transparent overlays to the image, and can be used to separate annotations. For example, a separate annotation layer could be established for each different end-user (e.g. legal department comments vs. marketing department comments on a proposal), or for each different function (e.g. plumbing notes vs. wiring notes on a house blueprint). Layers can be viewed simultaneously, or alone. (For example, view only legal department comment layer, or view legal department and marketing department comment layers). A layer must exist before annotations can be created. Each annotation (or element) that is created must reside on a layer, and cannot reside on more than one layer. 

The LayerCollection and Layer classes enable the application programmer to access and manage the layers on which annotations are stored. The LayerCollection methods are used to load annotations from file or variant and save annotations to file or variant.

Each layer has an associated collection of elements and groups.

Element Class

Annotations (also called elements) are textual or graphical notations that can be attached to an image. Annotations can be viewed with the image, but are not part of the image. (The Brand method can be used to make the annotation a permanent part of the image being viewed if desired.)

The ElementCollection and Element classes enable the application programmer to access and manage the annotations (elements) on a layer. 

Group Class

Within a layer, elements may be grouped. Grouping annotation elements lets you manipulate these items together.  An element on a layer can be associated with only one group at any time, or may be associated with no group.

The GroupCollection and Group classes enable the application program to access and manage the groups on a layer. 

Toolbar Class

The NotateXpress toolbar contains a set of annotation tools, enabling the application end user to annotate the image. An annotation element is created by the application end user when a tool is selected in the toolbar and applied to the viewed image. 

Each tool within the toolbar has a menu, which enables the application end-user to specify properties of the tool. For example, the application end-user may use the tool’s menu to specify that the line color of the rectangle tool should be blue. Then each time the tool is selected and applied to the image, a blue rectangle will be drawn.

Attributes of the NotateXpress toolbar and tools can be set globally to apply on all layers, or they can be set on a specific layer. 

When a tool attribute is specified both globally and locally to a specific layer, the local (layer) value has precedence.

The Toolbar class defines the global defaults for the toolbars on each layer. 

 

 


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