Description
With SIMATIC PCS 7 V6.0 all the standard faceplates were converted to the Faceplate Designer technology. Because of this the Faceplate Designer has been included as an editor in WinCC Explorer.

In the Faceplate Designer editor you create the layout of the basic masks for faceplates. Using the editor you can define the name and views of the new faceplate. Furthermore, you select whether the new faceplate should also contain a loop display, batch variables or group display. You can also specify the height and width of the new faceplate here.

Configuring

1. Open the Faceplate Designer with a double-click in WinCC Explorer. In the "Type" field you enter the name for your new faceplate. 

Fig. 1: Opening the Faceplate Designer and selecting the faceplate

2. You then configure the views for the faceplate. You can select the available views by simply transferring them with the arrow buttons. You can change the order at any time with the Up and Down buttons.

Fig. 2: Selecting and arranging the views configured for the faceplate

With the "More..." button you can select additional views for a faceplate.

3. To finish configuring in the Faceplate Designer you select the "Generate" button to create the views for the faceplate.

Fig. 3: Finishing configuration by generating all the faceplate files

4. All the views are in the Graphics Designer editor in WinCC Explorer. The name consists of the name of the faceplate selected and the extension of the view (e.g. Standard).

Fig. 4: Results of generating all the faceplate files (pdl pictures)

5. The separate views of the faceplate can then be configured in the Graphics Designer. For the "Standard" view, for example, the picture @PG_<faceplate-Name>_Standard.pdl is made available in the folder "GraCS" (here @PG_NEWBLOCK_STANDARD.PDL). 
   The picture @pcs7elements.pdl contains template elements for creating faceplates for SIMATIC PCS 7. The simplest way of configuring is to copy/paste these elements into your own faceplate. In the following figure you see how a bar display is copied from the template picture into the standard view of the new faceplate.
   
   Fig. 5: Copying objects into the faceplate views ( 50 KB )  
   
   
6. To complete the configuration you dynamically configure the new element inserted in the view of the faceplate. Since the faceplate is linked to the relevant structure name, in the faceplate view you just insert the connector name with the prefixed dot for the dynamic.
   
   Fig. 6: Configuring the links for the faceplate ( 28 KB )  

Note:
If you want to adapt the views of the standard blocks (e.g. Motor, Valve) to suit your needs, it is not recommended to reconfigure the entire faceplate according to these instructions. In this case it is better to open an existing view, e.g. @PG_<faceplate-Name>_Standard.pdl, and modify that. This means that in the view you can change colors, add or remove elements and integrate new dynamics.

A detailed description is available in the manual "Process Control SystemPCS 7 Programming Instructions for Blocks", chapter 2 "Creating Faceplates", section 2.2 "Working with the Faceplate Designer".