Z1 Designer

The Z1 Designer is a free application that lets you create your own dashboards for use with the Z1 Dashboard.



Creating New Dashboards / Opening Dashboards
After starting the Z1 Designer you need to either Create a new dashboard (File->New Dashboard), or open an previously created dashboard (File->Open Dashboard). There is a sample dashboard provided with version 2021.4 of the Z1 Dashboard. To open this sample dashboard (or any other dashboard) you need to select the 'Dashboard' XML file within its containing folder. To open the sample dashboard select the Dashboard XML file located in 'documents/z1dashboard/dashboards/Sample Dashboard'.

Dashboard Layout
All dashboards are separated into two main layers: Background and Foreground. The Background layer is drawn once when the dashboard is created. The Foreground layer is drawn every time the Z1 Dashboard redraws. You should place objects in the appropriate layer when creating your dashboards. Objects that do not change should be placed in the background. Objects that could change (such as data channels, shift lights, warnings, etc) should be placed in the foreground.

File Structure
A dashboard created in the Z1 Designer requires the same version or higher of the Z1 Dashboard to run. So dashboards created in version 2021.4 of the Z1 Designer will need version 2021.4 or higher of the Z1 Dashboard to run.

Each dashboard currently consists of two files - an XML definition file and a PNG preview image file. Both of these files are placed inside a single folder. This folder should have the same name as the Dashboard. So if you name your dashboard 'My Dashboard', then the folder containing that dashboard's files will be called 'My Dashboard'. The Z1 Designer will create these files and folder automatically when you create a new dashboard.

For a custom dashboard to be available to the Z1 Dashboard its folder should be placed inside the 'Dashboards' folder located inside documents/Z1Dashboard. So with our above example called 'My Dashboard' the folder structure would be 'documents/z1dashboard/dashboards/my dashboard'. The Z1 Designer will place any newly created Dashboards in this location by default.

All custom dashboards available to the Z1 Dashboard will be displayed at the bottom of the Car 2 tab's dashboard drop down.

Download Z1 Designer v2023.3