Display Names
For a component, a display name differs from a regular name, in that a display name follows certain rules, and is included as a portion of the ord for the component. Component name rules allow only alphanumeric characters (a-z, A-Z, 0–9), and underscores (_), where name must begin with an alpha (a-z, A-Z) character.
Figure 1. Component created with illegal character(s) in name has an escaped name
If you add a component with a name that breaks the rules, for example, a name with a space character, hyphen, or name that begins with a numeral, the component’s name is created with “escaped characters”, and your typed entry is used as the display name. As shown in the preceding figure, the escaped name is visible on the slot sheet of the component’s parent. Each escaped character begins with a dollar sign ($) followed by the hexadecimal ASCII code for that character, for example “$2d” for a hyphen, or “$20” for a space character.
Figure 2. Example edit of a component to set a display name
Slots of many components such as control points include frozen properties and actions, where each has a default name. If needed, go to the slot sheet of the component and edit these names, resulting in explicit display names. This is commonly done to customize names of point actions.
Figure 3. Example edit of an action slot on DiscreteTotalizerExt
For example, instead of Reset Elapsed Active Time as an action for a DiscreteTotalizerExt of a BooleanWritable point, you might edit it to Reset Runtime, as shown in the preceding figure.
Histories also support display names. In the
Figure 4. Example edit of history to assign a display name (right-click history)
If you assign a display name to a history, its original history ID is not affected. The display name is simply used when displaying the history in various views into the system.