BITS N BYTES

Sysmac Studio Improvement Request

232 posts in this topic

Current PITA complaints:

1:When in the ladder editor, as the pane gets full and another rung is added, the rung appears at the bottom of the screen without even showing the contact comments. I have to scroll down to see them. I would like to be able to scroll down until the rung I am working on is in the middle of the edit pane. In CX programmer, you can scroll down until no ladder logic is even visible in the editing pane.

2:In the ladder editor, when adding a contact to a rung, as you type the pick list come up to show variables that are already registered, but without the variable's comment. I am currently working on a project that combines two CJ programs into one NJ program. I am using the original CJ bit address comments as the new NJ variable name. For example, bit address comment 'Conveyor Starting' is present in both CJ programs. CJ 1 has a Bit address of W123.00 with the comment 'Conveyor Starting', CJ 2 has a bit address of W54.12 with a comment of 'Conveyor Starting'. The NJ program has two variables 'Conveyor_Starting1' with a comment of ''MR_W123.00" and a variable 'Conveyor_Starting2' with a comment of "RT_W54.12". When I type the contact address 'Conveyor_Running' the Pick List shows 'Conveyor_Running1' and 'Conveyor_Running2'. If i choose 'Conveyor_Running1' and it is the wrong reference to the original CJ reference, I have to go back and edit the variable name. If the comment for a variable name were shown in the Pick List, it would save several keystrokes. This could be an optional setting, but IMHO, being able to see the variable comments in a Pick List would be very helpful.

 

 

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PITA #3

When a ladder element is highlighted, pressing 'w' adds a parallel rung below the element, except for an output?

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7 hours ago, twstevic said:

PITA #3

When a ladder element is highlighted, pressing 'w' adds a parallel rung below the element, except for an output?

W is the shortcut key for a normally open OR contact.  That's what it's supposed to do, and what it did in CX-Programmer.  There is no keyboard shortcut for a parallel output.

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Crossbow: Yes, you are correct. I never use 'W' in CXP, I always moved the cursor to the 'cell' I wanted an input or output to be and used the drawings tools '|' & '-' to make the connections. 

My current pet peeve. Would it be so hard to have output coils line up with the rung width, instead of this?

Capture.thumb.JPG.7aab3add67e06c63a0bae5

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Never seen that.  My coils always go to the right.

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Twstevic:

Not sure on your version but in v1.16 if you go to options, ladder view  (I think it is) you have the option to align to the right and change the width also. 

Have a play with these settings.

If your not a fan of green or pink tagnames/comments (which I'm not) you can mix this up too.

 

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Donovan: Yep, I found that. Thank you. Why the alignment is not turned on by default beats the crap out of me.

Pet peeve of the day:

You enter a variable name: 123ABC, after you press enter, you realise that should have been 123_ABC. Go to the local variable table and change the name that you just entered, but the name is not updated in the editor. If you don't manually fix the name in the editor, the discrepancy is not found until the project is built.

 

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twstevic, there is an option in the same software options screen that allows that to be changed.  Look under Variables in the options.

And the alignment of the right bus bar is not on by default because it was just added a couple versions ago.  

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Crossbow: Yes, you are correct. Thank You. Again, this is not turned on by default? Hmm.

It does not appear that the Tag name AND Comment can be changed at the same time in the variable table.  

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35 minutes ago, twstevic said:

It does not appear that the Tag name AND Comment can be changed at the same time in the variable table.  

Not sure what you mean by that.  You can edit any items you want in the variable table.  Unless you are online.

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The variable comments behave a bit odd in the project I am working on at the moment. Per the attached images, in the ladder editor, variable 'Serial_Number_E_Mem_Write_Complete' shows a comment of 'W121.00'. When I click on 'Go To Variable Table', the entry in the table shows the comment as being empty. If I add a comment in the variable table, it does not show up on the ladder screen, if I modify the comment on the ladder screen, the comment does not show up in the variable table. If I add another instance of  'Serial_Number_E_Mem_Write_Complete', the comment that is displayed in the ladder editor follows the new instance. This behavior is not constant, most of the variable/comment pairs work correctly. The only explanation I can guess at is that part of the project was developed using SS V1.15 and I am now at V1.16.

 Capture4.JPG.cbc53f452a989dca13fd82fdde1

Capture5.JPG.7e8ac47779e0ecd3f2672cdf247

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Don't know if this applies, but there is an option setting under 'Comments for Variables and Data Types' to use the global variables.  I think your variable comments are actually being added to the external variables list in the program, not directly to the global variable list.

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Crossbow: Yep...Thank You.

Three for today:

Make the compiler smarter. When you do a build, you may get 2-3-4 errors. They may all pertain to the same problem (a variable name). The compiler could be smart enough to realize that this is the same error. After doing a build and getting 10 - 20 -30 errors, if you start fixing the errors from the top, say error 1, that seems to screw up some 'pointer' so when you then try to fix error 2, the software does not take you to the correct location. The only way around this that I have found is to start fixing errors from the bottom up. Or writing code without errors. Depending on how the program is stored in binary form, this may be a little harder to fix.

 

When editing a ladder diagram, if the cursor is on an input element, pressing hot key 'W' will add a parallel contact. There does not seem to be any way to add a parallel line below an output. Have to select it from the context menu. A generic 'add a parallel line anywhere' hot key would be helpful.

 

After sorting variables, it would be handy if there were an option to retain the sorted list even through a program save and reload.  If I sort by name, keep that list static and add any new variable names to the bottom. The same if I sorted by data type or comment. typically, when starting a project, I define all of the IO first, so the top of the variable list always has my X..... and Y.... variable names I have to scroll through when looking for a specific name.

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A new one for today:

The project I am working on involves taking three CJ PLC projects and combining them into One NJ PLC project. While working, I have one or two instances of CX-P open, and one instance of SS open. It does not always happen and I can not seem to find the exact reason or circumstances that cause this to occur, but, at times, when I leave the SS window and do something in CX-P, upon returning to SS, some of the keys and sometimes the mouse pointer do not work properly.  The keys I have noticed are 'i, I' to insert an instruction in a ladder rung, 'n, N' when working on structured text (try to type 'END_IF' without an N), and the mouse pointer when trying to select a ladder contact. The mouse pointer will select the variable name or the comment, not the whole element. The only way I have found to make these work again is to click multiple times on multiple objects within the editing window until the mouse pointer actually selects a logic element. At that point, all of the keys work again.  I do not know how one could even program this if that was the desired behavior.

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It would be nice to be able to drag Variables from the variable table or other functions/function blocks to functions/function block input/output parameters, just like you can when you drag to a watch window.

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From the beginning of time (computer time) a keyboard shortcut for copy has been Ctrl + INSERT, a shortcut for paste has been Shift + INSERT. When working in the Variable Table, Shift + INSERT not only pastes the content in the clipboard, it also inserts a blank variable field. THIS IS WRONG. Please, Omron, fix this!

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Never heard of that... interesting... I've always used the Windows keys, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V.

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The Windows keys do not work on a Unix terminal, however, the Unix keys have worked in every Windows application I have ever tried to use them in.

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1. Allow using indirect addressing for data edit in NA. This is currently possible for data display.

2. Add events and actions for data edit. e.g. for press, value changed

3. Add functionalities for saving styles (Visual properties) so you easily could apply that style to whatever object. too much of my time is used to apply properties. I know you could save to toolbox but this will still not work between different objects.

4. Some sort of "alarm server" so alarm acknowledgements could sync between different NA HMI's

5. logger for last actions on the HMI. e.g. user logged in/out, values changed etc.

Also, I am missing more built in functionalities in the toolbox like pie charts, diagrams, buttons, multi state valves, pumps etc. for process visualisation. I think the HMI enviorment got some good upgrades in 1.17 but still alot to go on. Rumor has it that the HMI enviorment will get huge upgrades when they release NA runtime or wharever they're going to call it. Anyone seen it yet?

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Improve Keypress handling. If there are two instances of Sysmac Studio open on a mid power PC, keypress actions are often missed unless the key is held down for a longer than normal period of time. 

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Improve the printing capability for NA pages.

Currently a page is printed without any configured background pages, so the screenshot is incomplete.

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One thing I would think may be very helpful would be to have the ability to backup the variables and memory from a live PLC and restore them to a program running in the simulator.

Studio startup up time (for the programming software) really, really needs to be improved!!! 

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What version are you using?  Startup time improved greatly around 1.12, and again with 1.17.  More speed improvements are supposed to happen with 1.18 from what I was told.

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I have 1.16. I am rather hesitant to update in the middle of a project. Can two versions exist on the same computer?

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Not that I am aware of.

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