Configuring Dynamic Group Visibility on KTP900 Basic HMI Panels

Overview

Engineers commissioning a SIMATIC KTP900 Basic panel frequently need to show or hide entire groups of screen objects based on a tag value, user role, or process state. The intuitive expectation is a single "Visibility" property on the group, similar to the per-object Visibility animation available in TIA Portal. In practice, the WinCC Basic engineering tool that ships with the KTP900 Basic family does not expose a dynamic Visibility property on a group object: animations on groups are not available in the Basic runtime, and visibility must therefore be controlled either by overlaying objects with a screen-colored rectangle, by routing the content into a Popup Screen, or by migrating to a Comfort panel where faceplates carry the visibility into a single interface tag.

This reference documents each technique with the exact TIA Portal menus, tag settings, and object properties involved, together with a verification procedure that confirms runtime behavior on a physical or simulated KTP900 Basic device.

Prerequisites

• TIA Portal V17 or later with the WinCC Basic option installed (the Basic editor is bundled with the SIMATIC Basic Panels HSP). See the TIA Portal Installation and Commissioning Manual.
• SIMATIC KTP900 Basic (6AV2 123-2JB03-0AX0) or compatible Basic panel image. The firmware of the device must match the HSP used in TIA Portal; mismatch triggers compile error "HMI device type not supported". See the KTP900 Basic Operating Instructions.
• A defined HMI tag of data type Bool (e.g., GroupVisible) exposed in the PLC data block, or a local HMI tag for testing.
• Project access rights allowing editing of screens and animations in the HMI device configuration.

KTP900 Basic Capability Matrix

The KTP900 Basic is a 9-inch TFT panel with a 800 x 480 pixel display, 6AV2 123-2JB03-0AX0 catalog number, and runs the WinCC Basic runtime. The capabilities of the Basic runtime differ from the Comfort runtime in several areas that affect dynamic visibility:

The conclusion is that visibility on a group is not a first-class property in either Basic or Comfort: the difference is that Comfort provides higher-level containers (faceplates, layers) that make per-instance visibility trivial, whereas Basic forces the engineer to engineer the workaround into the screen layout itself.

Why Native Group Visibility Is Not Available

In the TIA Portal screen editor, a "group" is a selection of objects that have been grouped through Edit > Group or with Ctrl+G. Grouping is a layout convenience: it collapses multiple primitive objects (rectangles, text fields, IO fields, buttons) into a single selectable unit for moving, copying, and aligning. The group is not a runtime object on the HMI; the runtime still enumerates and renders the original primitive objects. As a result, animations attached to the group do not exist on the panel image; the engineering tool shows the property in the inspector, but the WinCC Basic runtime does not honor it.

The same limitation exists in WinCC Comfort, with one critical difference: Comfort faceplates encapsulate the grouped objects behind a single interface, and the faceplate's interface can carry one or more Visibility tags that are mapped to each contained object during the faceplate engineering pass. The result appears to be "group-level visibility" but is implemented by enumeration of the contained objects.

Method 1: Rectangle Overlay Workaround (Basic Panels)

The accepted workaround for the KTP900 Basic and the broader Basic Panels family is a screen-colored rectangle that covers the group and is itself animated with the Visibility property. The runtime still renders the original group objects, but the user perceives them as hidden because the opaque rectangle sits on top.

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. Identify the group to be hidden. Open the target screen in the TIA Portal HMI editor and select the group. Note the group's bounding rectangle in the Properties pane under Layout > Position and Size: X, Y, Width, Height.
2. Insert a rectangle. From the Toolbox, drag a Rectangle object onto the screen. In the inspector, set its Position and Size to match the group's bounding rectangle exactly. Snap to the integer pixel grid to avoid sub-pixel seams.
3. Match the background color. Set the rectangle's Background color to the exact screen background color. The KTP900 Basic default screen background is pure white (RGB 255,255,255). If you have a custom background or gradient, sample a representative pixel and use that color. Mismatches become visible as a faint halo at the edges of the overlay.
4. Disable the border. Set Line > Style to None and Line > Weight to 0. A visible border is the most common defect in this workaround.
5. Send the rectangle to the back. Right-click the rectangle and choose Order > Send to Back. The rectangle must be drawn over the group, so it must sit at a higher Z-order. If the group was grouped after the rectangle was placed, re-issue the send-to-back command on the rectangle.
6. Create the visibility tag. In the HMI tag table, add a Bool tag (e.g., GroupVisible). Map it to a PLC address such as %DB5.DBX0.0 or define it as an internal HMI tag for local testing.
7. Attach the animation. Select the rectangle. In the inspector open Properties > Animations. Click Add and select Visibility. Configure the animation:
   • Tag: GroupVisible
   • Trigger: Change of value
   • Range: Value 1 → Visible; Value 0 → Invisible (or invert as required)
8. Compile and transfer. Right-click the HMI device → Compile > Software (rebuild all). Resolve any warnings regarding the unused group. Transfer the project to the panel via PROFINET, USB, or MPI.
9. Verify on the panel. Toggle the visibility tag from the PLC (or from the HMI tag table in the simulation). The group must appear and disappear in unison as the tag changes.

Limitations of the Overlay Technique

• Input objects remain active. Buttons, IO fields, and sliders inside the group continue to receive touch events because they are not hidden at the runtime level. The visual effect is correct, but a user can still tap a "hidden" button. Always combine the overlay with disabling the inputs using the Enable animation on each interactive object, or move the interactive elements into a Popup Screen.
• Color drift. Lighting conditions and any gradient background expose the overlay edges. Sample the background color at the four corners of the group's bounding box and pick the dominant value, or use a solid background.
• Animation count. Each animated object consumes runtime resources. A panel with dozens of group overlays may show slow screen redraws on lower-end Basic devices.

Method 2: Popup Screen (Single-Group Scenarios)

If the screen contains a single dynamically shown group, the cleanest Basic-panel solution is to host that group in a Popup Screen and open or close the popup from a tag. The popup acts as the group container, and the visibility is implemented by the popup's own open/close state.

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. In the HMI device, open Screens & Popups > Add new Popup Screen. Name it Popup_Group1.
2. Design the group content inside the popup using the same objects you would otherwise have placed on the parent screen.
3. Define a Bool tag Popup_Group1_Open.
4. On the parent screen, place a button. In its Events tab, add a Click event that calls the system function ShowPopupScreen with the popup name and an open/close tag.
5. To close the popup, configure a button on the popup itself that calls ClosePopupScreen or write the value 0 to the open tag.
6. Compile, transfer, and verify. The popup must appear over the parent screen with the configured modal behavior, and all contained objects must be inactive while the popup is closed.

Popup Screens are documented in the WinCC Basic V17 Programming and Operating Manual, section "Configuring Popup Screens".

Method 3: Faceplate Visibility (Comfort Panels and WinCC Professional)

On Comfort panels and on WinCC Professional (PC Runtime), the recommended approach is a faceplate. A faceplate is a reusable HMI screen object with its own interface, properties, and tags. Visibility is exposed as a single interface tag on the faceplate instance, and the faceplate's internal event wiring animates each contained object using that tag.

Step-by-Step Procedure

1. In the project tree, expand HMI > Faceplates. Add a new faceplate, e.g., GroupFaceplate_1.
2. In the faceplate editor, add a Bool interface tag Visibility.
3. Place the group objects inside the faceplate. For each object, open Properties > Animations > Visibility and set the tag to the faceplate's Visibility interface tag.
4. Save the faceplate. The faceplate appears in the toolbox under My Faceplates.
5. Drag the faceplate instance onto any screen. In the instance's Interface properties, bind Visibility to the project tag GroupVisible.
6. Compile and transfer. The single tag now controls the visibility of all objects inside the faceplate instance.

Faceplates are documented in the WinCC Comfort/Advanced V17 Programming Manual, section "Working with Faceplates".

Animation Configuration Details in TIA Portal

The animation dialog for Visibility exposes the following parameters. Default values are those used by a fresh installation of TIA Portal V17.

For most use cases the trigger is Change of value, which avoids the runtime cost of a cyclic evaluation. The Range mapping supports multiple ranges: a single Bool is sufficient, but a UInt tag with thresholds allows the same animation to drive opacity as well (e.g., 0 = invisible, 1 = 50% opacity, 2 = full).

Tag Configuration Recommendations

• Polarity. Decide whether the tag represents visible or hidden. A polarity of 1 = visible is the most common; the alternative (1 = hidden) is used when the safe state of the panel is "objects visible if the PLC is offline".
• Initial value. Set the tag's Initial Value in the HMI tag table. The KTP900 Basic applies the initial value on every cold restart, including power-on. If the initial value is undefined, the group may flicker on the first screen load.
• Update cycle. The default update cycle for HMI tags is 1 s. For a visibility animation tied to operator input, change the update cycle to 100 ms or use Change of value trigger on the connected PLC tag.
• Acquisition mode. Use Cyclic continuous only for monitoring tags. For visibility, On demand with an Update on change from the PLC is more efficient.

Verification Procedure

1. Compile check. Right-click the HMI device → Compile > Software (rebuild all). The output window must show "0 errors, 0 warnings". Warnings about unconnected animations or unused groups are tolerated.
2. Simulation. Start the HMI simulation: Online > Simulation > Start with current project. Use the tag simulator panel (View → Tag simulator) to toggle GroupVisible and confirm the group appears/disappears.
3. Transfer to panel. In the device toolbar, click Download to device and follow the prompts. Select the correct PG/PC interface (PROFINET, USB, or MPI). The transfer log must report "Download successful".
4. On-panel test. On the KTP900 Basic, navigate to the target screen. Toggle the visibility tag from the connected PLC using a watch table in TIA Portal. Confirm:
   • The group becomes invisible when the tag is 0.
   • The group becomes visible when the tag is 1.
   • The animation is smooth (no flicker, no half-rendered frames).
   • No unintended color halo at the group edges.
5. Input lockout test. If the group contains interactive objects, attempt to operate them while the group is hidden. Inputs must not be triggered. If they are, add the Enable animation in addition to the Visibility animation.

Method Comparison

Troubleshooting Matrix

Field-Proven Cautions

• Grouping in TIA Portal can be undone by an Ungroup in the next editing session if the project is shared. Document the group definition in a comment block on the screen.
• The Basic runtime limits the number of simultaneous animations per screen; the exact limit depends on the device and the firmware version. See the KTP900 Basic Operating Instructions, section "Performance".
• When the panel loses connection to the PLC, the last visible value of the tag is held (or zero, depending on tag acquisition mode). A visibility animation tied to a connection-loss tag should use the PLC's LifeBit to display a safe state.

FAQ