E-STUDIO: E-Objects [22697]

E-Objects are design time building blocks of an experiment, and are located in the Toolbox within E-Studio. The E-Objects in the Toolbox are used to build an experiment by dragging and dropping the icons onto valid targets. Valid targets include the Structure view, procedural timelines, or the Workspace. When an object is dropped into the Structure view or on a procedural timeline, the placement of the object is specific to where it was dropped (e.g., on the trial Procedure). Visual cues (i.e., arrows) concerning the placement of the object are given when dropping an object within the Structure view or onto a Procedure window opened in the Workspace. When a new object is created by dragging an icon to the Workspace, a new instance of that object is created. The reference to this object is placed in the Unreferenced E-Objects folder in the Structure view.

Each object created within an experiment has a set of associated properties. The associated properties can be customized and specified either in the Properties window or in the object's Property pages. Once part of an experiment, an object's properties may be viewed by highlighting it (i.e., by selecting it) in one of the window representations of the experiment (e.g., Structure view, Browser, Workspace).

E-Object	Icon	Category	Purpose	See Also
Experiment		Flow Control	Control highest-level information for the experiment including initialization of context variables, startup information, device properties, etc.	E-STUDIO: Experiment Object [22698]
List		Sampling	A spreadsheet representation of attributes which can be sampled in a specified manner.	E-STUDIO: List Object [22700]
Slide		Stimulus Presentation	Method to display combinations of text, images, and sound.	E-STUDIO: Slide Object [22701]
FeedbackDisplay		Miscellaneous	Method to display customized feedback based on a response collected.	E-STUDIO: FeedbackDisplay Object [22709]
InLine		Flow Control	Allows user written script to be inserted at a specific point during program execution.	E-STUDIO: InLine Object [22710]
TextDisplay		Stimulus Presentation	Method to present a text string or character in a specified font, size and color.	E-STUDIO: TextDisplay Object [22705]
ImageDisplay		Stimulus Presentation	Method to present an image.	E-STUDIO: ImageDisplay Object [22704]
MovieDisplay		Stimulus Presentation	Method to present a video.	E-STUDIO: MovieDisplay Object [22706]
SoundOut		Multimedia Presentation	Method to play audio files.	E-STUDIO: SoundOut Object [22708]
SoundIn		Multimedia Presentation	Method to record audio files.	E-STUDIO: SoundIn Object [22707]
Wait		Timing and Synchronization	Method used to wait for a specified time.	E-STUDIO: Wait Object [22711]
Label		Flow Control	Method to allow program execution to jump to a specific location within a Procedure.	E-STUDIO: Label Object [22712]
PackageCall		Flow Control	Method to call a block of E-Basic script in an external file.	E-STUDIO: PackageCall Object [22713]
Procedure		Flow Control	Represents the sequential execution of the specified objects.	E-STUDIO: Procedure Object [22699]

Each new instance of an object is assigned a default name of the format "ObjectTypeN”, where “N” is an automatically assigned integer that helps to create unique names. Although an object may be used in multiple instances throughout an experiment (i.e., the same object may be referenced in various locations within the structure of the experiment) all unique objects in the experiment must feature unique names. Object names cannot contain spaces and must observe the same rules for defining legal variable names in E-Basic (e.g., the following characters are not permitted: space “/*&_^()[}{$#@%). Restrictions for object names are listed below:

• Cannot be empty
• Must begin with an alpha character (A-Z or a-z)
• Permitted characters include a-z, A-Z, 0-9, underscore(_), and period (.)
• Cannot exceed 80 characters
• Cannot conflict with device name (e.g., Keyboard) or device type (e.g., KeyboardDevice)
• Cannot be the same as any log level name (refer to Data File tab in Experiment object)
• Cannot be the same as any type in the Toolbox (e.g., TextDisplay, Wait, etc.)
• Cannot be named “c” (this character is reserved for the Context object)

Standard Property pages
Each of the E-Objects includes Property pages along with a Properties window. The Property pages may be displayed by clicking the Property Pages button when the object is opened in the Workspace, or via the Properties window. The advantage of the Property pages is the user- friendly interface which groups the associated properties into common categories represented as tabs. Tabs that are common to most E-Objects: Common, Frame, Duration/Input, Task Events, Sync, Logging, and Experiment Advisor. The General tab will vary depending on which E-Object is selected.  These tabs are discussed in later articles. Tabs that are unique to individual E-Objects are discussed in the Property pages sections for the specific objects.

Copy and Paste Objects between Experiments
Exact copies of objects may be created between experiments. First, make a copy of the source object: right- click the object you want to copy from the Structure or Browser window of the *.es3 file you are copying from and click “Copy”. Next, paste the object into the target *.es3 file by using one of the following methods: 1. Right-click in the Structure or Browser window of the target *.es3 file and click “Paste”. Double-click a Procedure object in order to open it in the Workspace, right-click in the Procedure and click “Paste”.

If the *.es3 file you are copying to already contains an object with the same name as the object you are pasting, a conflict will occur, and you will be prompted with the E-Object Paste Conflict dialog box and asked to make a decision on how the conflict should be handled.

By default, "AutoNumber Pasted Objects" will be selected. This option will direct E-Prime to rename pasted objects automatically by adding the next available digit to the end of the object’s name. For example, if a conflict occurs when pasting an object named "Stimulus", E-Prime will automatically rename the object "Stimulus1" when this option is selected. You can also choose to skip conflicting objects, replace the existing object with the one being pasted, or append a prefix or suffix to the pasted object’s name. If multiple naming conflicts occur during a copy and paste operation, the option chosen in the E-Object Paste Conflict dialog will be used to resolve all of them.
 
When copying a List object that calls a Procedure (or multiple Procedures) from one experiment to another, note that all of the Procedures called by the List will be copied, along with any objects contained on these Procedures. Likewise, when copying a Procedure object from one experiment to another, all of the objects contained on that Procedure will also be copied.

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