Autodesk 663B1-05A111-1001 User Guide - Page 165

8 | Preferences and customization How do I? > Create a custom heads-up display readout The following explains the basics of using the command. Read the headsUpDisplay command documentation in the online help for a full explanation of the command's usage and flags. Related topics ™ "Show information over top of a view (heads-up display)" on page 47 Ingredients Procedure Create a MEL procedure that returns the information you want to show in the heads-up display. Update event Decide when Maya needs to update the display item. For example, if your display item shows some information about the selected object, Maya only needs to change it when the selection changes. This is the event that triggers a display update. Maya has a number of events you can listen for. Use headsUpDisplay listEvents to see the list of all events. If you update on a selection-based event ("SelectionChanged" or "SomethingSelected"), you can refine the event listening to only fire on a specific type of change to the selected nodes using the -nodeChanges flag. -nodeChanges "attributeChange" fires when any attribute on a selected node changes. -nodeChanges "connectionChange" fires when any input or output on a selected node changes. -nodeChanges "instanceChange" fires when any selected instanced node changes. Section and block position Select a column for the item to appear in. This is called the section. The following chart shows the number the command uses to refer to each column. 0 is the upper-left corner, 9 is the bottom-right corner of the screen. 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Select a line within the section on which the display item appear. This is called the block. Basics 165