The Flash Mode property defines the type of flash effect. Each flash effect corresponds to a number, as follows:
| Number for Expression | Effect |
|---|---|
|
0 |
Normal flashing effect |
|
1 |
On/Off flashing effect |
|
2 |
On/Off briefly on flashing effect |
|
3 |
On/Off briefly off flashing effect |
|
4 |
2 color flashing effect |
|
5 |
2 color fast flashing effect |
|
6 |
4 color flashing effect |
So, for a Mimic object to use a 2 color flashing effect, its Flash Mode property has to have an expression set to 4.
You can also use more complicated expressions to determine which flashing effect is used. For example, you can animate a Mimic object so that it uses a faster flashing effect when a point has unacknowledged uncleared alarms raised. To do this, you would animate the Flash Mode property so that it had the following expression:
IIF ("<path and name of point>.AlarmState" = 4, 1, 0)
Where <path and name of point> are the location and name of the point with which you want to associate the Mimic object.
The point's AlarmState property animates the Flash Mode—when the Alarm State is 4 (which corresponds to Unacknowledged Uncleared), the Flash Mode is 1 (which corresponds to On/Off Fast Flashing). When the point's AlarmState is any other value, the Flash Mode is 0 (Normal flashing).
As the Flash Mode is 0 when the point's AlarmState is 0 (Normal), you would also need to animate the Blink property so that the flash effect was only on when the point's AlarmState was any value except 0 (you only want the Mimic object to flash when the point has an alarm). To do this, you would animate the Blink property so that its expression is:
"<path and name of point>.AlarmState"<>0
For this expression, you do not enter the angle brackets around the path and name of point (as elsewhere, they are used to indicate that this is a database location and name), but you do need to enter the angle brackets before the 0 as these are used to indicate any value smaller or greater than 0.
The Blink expression works like this:
If the point's AlarmState is less than or greater than 0 (that is, an alarm is raised), the result of the expression is TRUE and so the Blink is set to 1 (on). If the point's AlarmState is 0 (normal i.e. no alarms are raised) then the result of the expression is FALSE and the Blink is set to 0 (off).