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GX-Developer improvement requests

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I hope that a DEV pins this & people use it. Hopefully someone with clout from Mitsubishi will pick it up and realise what a dog GX-Developer is, redesign it & I'll begin praising it! Here is my improvement requests & some reasoning... History [ BACK ] button / shortcut Lets face it, you would not use Internet Explorer if it didn't have a Back button, you'd go get FireFox. In a breakdown situation when you drill down into contacts, 3, 4, 5, levels, then realise your on the wrong path, you want to go back maybe 1 or 2 or 3 levels. now what was that address??? I forget. dang ANNOYING. Instant X-Ref dock-able pane (like CX-Programmer address reference) You click a contact & all usage is there in a docked list below. Simple & VERY useful. Customisable shortcuts for ALL OPERATIONS In my some areas of my work, a mouse is simply not up to it. And to be frank, I prefer sticking with one or the other, I hate being forced to move between mouse & keyboard. Don't move the carrot, I will. If I select a contact, then go into write mode, I DO NOT WANT THE APPLICATION TO MOVE THE CURSOR TO THE TOP OF THE RUNG OR ANY OTHER POSITION!!! dang annoying! Remember position when launching GXD Every time I launch GXD on my development machine with 4 19" monitors, GX insists on opening up across all screens, I want it to load just how I left it last time!!! More characters in my comments The highly restrictive comment length of 16 characters is simply ridiculous & leads to confusion - especially for persons unfamiliar with the ladder. Sure, restrict on screen viewing to 16 characters, but show the rest of the comment in the status bar or a tool-tip when the object is highlighted or something (take a look at AB and OMRON) Proof read ALL dialogs I still chuckle at the crap that is displayed when presented with confirmation dialogs. True Forcing & toggling - WITH STATUS With Omron you can FORCE ON, FORCE OFF & CANCEL FORCE or SET / RESET. The contact & coil will show a lock symbol signifying the item is forced. On line function help. I am pretty up to speed with the functions & instructions across a few PLCs but parameter help NEVER goes a miss. God help beginners. Normalise Ladder So i don't draw my rung in a perfect straight line, it is still 'electrically' sound, but GXD says NO! The ladder editing is almost as bad as AB. Omron rules here - please don't take my word for it, try it out! Commented Rung Browser Comment your most useful rungs & call up the 'Commented Rung Browser'. you are presented with a list of items... Station Normal Home Position Station Complete Cycle Time Counter Cycle Counter HMI ... you click on item 3 & you are taken to the logic for 'Cycle Complete' Highly effective, intuitive, immediate custom help info & encourages users to maintain comments. I have more, but my fingers ache & my blood pressure is rising. Please add your comments. NOTE: I am not against Mitsubishi, I have to use it, but compared to others I have used, it is simply miles behind. I want it to catch up to the rest because when I come to chose a PLC for a project, I will immediately discount Mitsubishi regardless of cost or PLC capability on the basis of the technicians maintaining it would hang me having used OMRON and AB & it slows me to a craw both developing (inconsistent shortcut keys) and debugging (restrictive comments, no history, all of the above) . NOTE2: The version I own is V8.05 (i think) so if any of this is already catered for, let me know & I'll amend it (and perhaps buy an upgrade!). Steve.
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Yes GX Developer can be better (a lot) and i'm sure user feedback will be appreciated. They took seriously comments about documentation and the website. Everyone please just keep your cool and add any wishlist or issue or whatever you have, let's try to come up with something they can use. GXD may have drawbacks and look old but I still like it better than any European PLC software I tried so far. Attached is my wishlist too so everyone can check it out and we don't repeat same things over and over. It's pretty random as I have been working on for some time, I'm just always so busy... My_Wish_list_for_Mitsubishi.pdf

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I know the people who this needs to get to that can try to make a difference. I'll print it to a PDF once in a while and forward it... I too have many things I've requested they change before, even going as far as to send screen shots of text and what it should read. Some of them have been corrected since 8.05 (current is 8.45). I've asked for an improved print engine and improved help files. I know they are working on a major rewrite of the software, so now is an excellent time for this to be brought up...

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The current version is 8.50C not 8.45

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When entering statements, why doesn't it just stop accepting keystrokes at 32 (limit) characters? I am sure everybody has typed too many, having to go back and take out words/chars until it accepts. And 32 chars only goes half way accross the page, why not 64 or more? Label programming, IMO, is useless if you can't export that tag database out of GX Dev and into HMI or another app. If you are using an HMI, a recompile of your GX proj (if you remove or insert a label) will re-order your address assignment to the labels screwing up your hard coded HMI devices. Also finding the raw address assignment to a particular label can be done, but not easily. I don't trust the "list of used devices" to find every instance of device. Help system non-existent. Cryptic text with warnings. I've always wanted to make a list all of the silly "plurality of place" type messages that pop up.

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The list if used devices is one of the best things about GX Dev. I never trapped it on a mistake and I use it quit some time. Futhermore it is really fast to program in GX Dev. One thing you are completly right mjrx, that are the silly messages.

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The current version released in the US is 8.45. 8.50 has been superceded in Japan by 8.55, and so US is not going to launch 8.50, instead wait and go straight to 8.55, but the launch is not complete for 8.55 yet. As I said, I know the software product guys at MEAU. There is also a page on their website at www.meau.com showing all current software versions. I love the fact that the warning box before an online edit is committed says 'PLC control has changed'... Well not until I click Yes... Or in network parameters for CC-Link 'number of boards in module' should read 'number of CC-Link modules in system'

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FNMdeJong Try DECO instruction (like DECO D10 M100 K4 etc.) then see if anything but M100 is used. This doesn't work on my version and there is more, unfortunately I didn't keep track of all scenarios. Mitsubishi has lot's of nice sides, I like instruction set, flat memory addressing (unlike with some other PLCs) full register access (no 9999 limits on 16-bit registers, default is not the BCD crap, timers are counting up, there is no stupid swapping of bit or byte order etc.) I agree that it can be very fast to program but it can be faster, cleaner and more user friendly. We are talking about having better and more productive user interface (cleanup comments and error messages, add online help, easier or smarter editing and mode switching, more complete and easier to use used device list and crossref., user settings for hotkeys fonts and colors).

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Don't get me wrong, I love Mits PLC's. As a PLC, nothing more powerful, rich instruction set, etc. I am so used to the quirky GX Developer I can move quite fast in it. Just could be a bit better. . . Does anyone share my opinion of label programming? Mits needs to have a common tag database (ala A-B ControlLogix) that is shared among other devices. Use all labels - let the compiler worry about assignment, data type and size. This tag database is then global to HMI's, etc. I discovered this tool has actually been made, but is not available in the US. Whats up with that? (its called MXChange)

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MXChange is not released in the US because it was made by Mitsubishi in Europe, and does not support all of the software products MEAU offers for use in the US. It is designed for GX IEC Developer, E-Designer, and the MX SCADA software. It does not include the GT Designer programming or the SCADA products they associate with in the US.

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Bit it does support GX Developer (as well as GX-IEC) and E-Designer, and that is what I need it for.

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I loved the 'old days' when you could develop your progrsm in MEDOC and then pick your *.NAM file from MAC Programmer and have all the info you needed to program your MMI Incidentally, what I would like to see in GXD is a shortcut key to see your line comment list... A simple and effective way to quickly find ones way around a program that was written ages ago!

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Can't you do that in GX Developer? Reason I ask is that it's available in IEC Developer ..... just export to an ASCII file and tell E-Designer to look at the ASCII file ....job done. Never having really used GX Developer (went straight from MEDOC to IEC), I'm surprised at some of the niggles it seems to have. Have to say that IEC Developer is really good IMHO .... surprised they don't release it in the USA as the latest version is really stable and very easy to use now that Global Variables don't have to be declared in POU headers as well as in the Global Variable list.

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I always go the other way, generate address and comment list in excell and then dump the comments into GXD. it works the other way too (simple copy and paste and create addresses by excel). one thing i may have forgoten in my wishlist is undo, I would like to have unlimited undo. my version of GXD only allows one which is way too little.

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I really hope that someone with influence does read and take note of these gripes. Of course we all get used to the flaws and quirks, so much so that we hardly notice them - only people new to the sofware might find them daunting. Some of the messages I have had from GX and GPP before it really frightened me. There was one once that said something like (I was downloading a new version of the code ) 'Cannot continue, data corrupted' it got to about 90% and said this every time. I cleared the memory and started again and still this very scary message, but everything worked fine. The new code was in and working. I kept my eyes on that machine for weeks but it still works fine 3 ot 4 years later. My gripe is to do with downloading the comments. This is a great feature; I am a traveling freelance programmer (amongst everything else) and I always give as much memory as possible to the comments so that in 2 years when I am called again, I have something to work with. However, no matter how much memory I allocate to the comments I never know which will be saved and which will be discarded in the plc. It would be nice to give inputs and outputs priority for comments and anything left over to internal realys and such. If you have a fully commented input and output base you have half a chance.

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Paul Ked, In response to your request, it's already there. In the Edit menu, down near the bottom, is a submenu called documentation and in that menu is a statement (what you called a line comment) list function. It's called Statement/Note Block Edit. You can also assign comments to pointers and interrupts there, as well as view all the notes in the program.

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I'm using 8.30G and that option is always blanked out Incidently, is there any differance with the US and EUR versions? I noticed that Panic Mode's ALT-1 doesn't work but I have never had a problem with this hot key. Best Regards Paul Ked

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There should be no difference between the US and UK versions. I know that feature was in older versions of the software, but without looking in the GX Developer manuals revision history, I'm not able to say when it came out or which CPUs it works on... Perhaps it's limited to PCU type (no idea why it would)..?

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Excellent topic. I too am fond of Mitusbishi PLCs but wish for a few changes in GX Developer: - Drag & Drop label variables to ladder instructions - Tool tip showing instruction requirements as I'm typing instruction (similar to ST) - Cross Reference that finds ALL instances of address/label including in ST routines - Individual Comments for each element of an array - Ability to pass (move) Structures - Ability to create nested structures - Function Block Diagram - Ability to export Labels in CSV format I think that GX IEC Developer has all or some of these functions. I sure wish that I could get my hands on it to find out.

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You can buy it from any Mitsubishi distributor in the US. But support for it on this side of the ocean is not great, as the Mitsu programmers over here tend to stick to the standard Mitsu ladder, not IEC. I've only seen it used a couple of places in the US...

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Crossbow is 100% correct. IEC is available, but support is so so, only because Mits in the US deals with people using GX Dev, not alot of calls for IEC. But I use both (mainly GX, IEC for some FX Modbus apps) and Mits US can still find out what you need to know about IEC. I have heard, from reliable sources, GX Developer has gone through a total re-write and will be available soon. I have literally years invested in GX Dev and all the related GX Configurator packages (which anyone can say are head scratching until you learn them and the obfuscated way they are described in manuals), and reams of printed, highlited manuals. Having said all that, these are still the best, most powerful PLC's out there. A customer said to me recently he was going to "upgrade" from an FX2N to a Micrologix 1000. All of us experienced in these 2 PLC's know which is the most powerful PLC, right?

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mrjx, You are correct in that GX-Developer2 is in development, and will combine both GX Developer and GX IEC Developer into a single package. So now is the time to post as many suggestions as possible here, as they are in the office writing code as we speak... It will be out in 2008.

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Upgrade is kind of an obscure word when one PLC is being upgraded with another. It would be better said that they are replacing the FX2N with a micrologix since the two hardware platforms are similiar in application. This is a problem that we are facing at our plant, without improved functionality and performance, payback in a year or two is hard. Also there is a new philosphy that obsolences is not a reason to upgrade. This can be a passionate agruement that nobody can walk away with a good feeling. My philosphy is that their is a lot of hardware that can do the job reliably, the place you win points are price, support, and availibility. I am glad mitsubishi is continouly improveing their software and hardware. Coming from a RsLogix and Beckhoff background, the transition was painful. Of course when you learn something new it is always a little painful. I was a big advocate against mitsu when it first came to our plant but, now I would say it is a good stable product with a good price point (I think I was worried about the unknowns). I recommend it and use it on my new projects when applicable. I hope the new GX-Developer is easy to use and makes configuration a snap. I do wish that mitsu would get more involed in the standards organizations, such as S88 (batch), S95(Enterprise), OMAC(Packaging), etc.. I think they could benefit from the exposure and contribute to better code and system interoperability and reliability. I am very supportive of the efforts of these organizations to provide a structured approachs to program and system creation. It is a big plus in my book that mitsu offers SFC as standard in GX-Developer.

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If you you want to take a look at it I can upload a version for you instead of a serial code put DEMO this will install the demo version of GX IEC Developer Edited by Gambit

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If you have a demo copy and the permissions to re-distribute it I would jump at the chance to try it out.

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