Conditional Styles

A text field can change how it looks depending on its value: for example, show the dew heater state in green when it's on and red when it's off, or a temperature in blue below freezing and red above 25 °C.

Conditions work on fields that contain only one variable and no other text, e.g. ${TEMPERATURE_C} or ${DEWCONTROLHEATER}. The style applies to the whole field, so with Heater: ${DEWCONTROLHEATER} the word "Heater:" would change colour too. Put any other text, such as a label, in its own field next to it, and give each value you want to style its own field.

Setting up conditions

1. Select the text field.
2. In the field's properties, click the Conditions button next to Colour. It is only enabled when the field contains only one variable of a supported type and no other text, and turns green when the field has conditions.
3. Each rule is one row: the condition on the left, then its colour and a sample of how it looks. Click Add rule for more rows. Check them with Try a value: the rule that's used is outlined in green. Then click Apply.
4. Save the overlay as usual.

Remove conditions in the dialog takes them off the field again.

Kinds of rules

The kind of rules follows the variable's type and can't be changed. That way a value is never compared in a way it wasn't meant for.

Variable type	Rules
Yes / No (e.g. the dew heater state, a planet's Visible)	One style for yes, one for no. Yes, on, true and 1 count as yes; no, off, false and 0 count as no. Untick a case to leave the field as it is for that value.
Number (numbers, temperatures, percentages, angles, …)	Any number of rows, each with a condition such as < 0 or >= 25. Click the after the condition to add a second one to the row, e.g. > 11 and ≤ 12; the removes it again. The operators are <, ≤, >, ≥ and =, so you decide whether a boundary is included.
Text	Any number of rows with equals, contains or starts with. Upper and lower case don't matter.

For numbers and text, the first row that matches is used, so order the rows from the most specific to the most general. Use the and buttons to move a row, and to delete it.

If no row matches, or the variable has no value, the field keeps its own style.

What a rule can change

Each rule sets the colour. Click in its row to also change:

• the stroke colour (tick the box next to it) and stroke width,
• the opacity (0 to 1),
• the font and its size,
• the text: Show instead replaces the value with your own text, e.g. DANGER for a temperature above 90, or Clear / Cloudy instead of a number.

Anything you leave empty keeps the field's own setting.

Show instead only changes what the overlay shows. The variable keeps its real value, so modules, the database, charts and anything that exports the value still get the number.

Some modules colour their values themselves, e.g. the Space Weather module shows the Kp index in green, yellow or red. Conditions are applied after that, so a matching rule overrides the module's colour.

Rule sets

If several fields use the same rules, for example On/Off for every switch, save the rules once and reuse them. Everything about rule sets is in the menu at the top right of the dialog:

• Save these rules as a rule set… stores the rules under a name in this overlay. Other fields of the same kind can then pick it in the same menu. Changing a rule set changes every field that uses it.
• If you change the rules of a field that uses a rule set and click Apply, only that field gets the changed rules; the rule set stays as it is.
• Copy a rule set from another overlay… copies a rule set from another overlay, e.g. from your daytime overlay into your nighttime one.

Rule sets are stored in the overlay itself, so an overlay you share or copy keeps them.

Example

A temperature field with three rows:

When value	Colour
< 0	blue
>= 0 and <= 25	white
> 25	red

Try a few values in Try a value before applying: -3 shows blue, 25 white (25 is included in the second row) and 25.5 red.