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- July 16, 2026, 06:15:50 PM
Recent Posts
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General Discussion / Re: New features wanted!! Apply here!
« Last post by Controls Guy on June 29, 2026, 03:20:05 PM »I'm in if you are! 
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General Discussion / Re: New features wanted!! Apply here!
« Last post by franji1 on June 29, 2026, 03:13:52 PM »Talk about an interesting twist.....You started it. If we have to support 2 levels, why not N?
2 would have to be handled differently than a normal (1 level) transition. Would we have to hard code in the Stage Flow editor that you could branch out of a transition AS LONG AS IT WASN'T BELOW ANOTHER TRANSITION? We would have to complicate the UI for that situation.
Instead of limiting it to 2, embrace N, and ignore hard limitations. Just let me draw sideways "AND ABOVE JOIN" LD rungs as a sideways transition tree
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General Discussion / Re: New features wanted!! Apply here!
« Last post by Controls Guy on June 29, 2026, 03:05:41 PM »"Cascading Transitions" may just need to be a thing. Why stop at 2 levels deep, Cascading Transitions could be a huge tree? Not sure why we could not support that concept - it's all TBD, but noteworthy.
Talk about an interesting twist.....
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General Discussion / Re: New features wanted!! Apply here!
« Last post by Controls Guy on June 29, 2026, 03:03:46 PM »Technically, the "internal logic view" could be LD for the Stage's logic or even another Stage PROGRAM (that itself is a split view - ha!).
Yup. The internals could be any logic language you support. LD and if you add them, text language or FBD.
re: the SFC in SFC, yes, either that or the collapse/expand implementation was what I was talking about with the zooming/folding comment.
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General Discussion / Re: New features wanted!! Apply here!
« Last post by franji1 on June 29, 2026, 02:57:02 PM »Another thing I think would be helpful is to have an exclusive divergence, like a switch case() for SFC. Note the transitions below the bus in this divergence, in addition to the one you'd normally expect above the bus. A lot of SFC implementations don't support this. You'd think you could simulate this by having an empty state just below the divergence bus, but no. By then you'd have committed to all the divergent threads so you have to run them all to completion to reconverge. I'm thinking you'd have to have a dedicated exclusive convergence to go with the exclusive divergence so that it knows it can proceed with only one thread complete.
Interesting SFC language twist. Your point about an "empty state" not semantically/logically the same - that is a good point. "Cascading Transitions" may just need to be a thing. Why stop at 2 levels deep, Cascading Transitions could be a huge tree? Not sure why we could not support that concept - it's all TBD, but noteworthy.
Generally, yes, the internals of each "stage" and each "transition" would be coded in different window/editor. Similar to DL, where the Stage Frame is a Split View, where the "Stage Flow View" is on the top and shows the stage flow with Stages and Transitions, but the bottom view is the "internal logic" of that "stage" (or for Designer, the Transition logic when top view cursor is on a Transition).
In DL, this bottom "internal logic view" is just a Ladder View.
Technically, the "internal logic view" could be LD for the Stage's logic or even another Stage PROGRAM (that itself is a split view - ha!). For transitions, could easily be a MATH expression that results in a zero (false) or non-zero (true) condition. or ? Thinking out loud.
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Do-more CPUs and Do-more Designer Software / Re: DM2 CPU?
« Last post by Controls Guy on June 29, 2026, 02:52:20 PM »Well, for some of us aliens (weird language settings), the CSV breaks when saving in Excel.
From DMD we get a clean CSV with double quotes and commas. When my Excel installation saves the CSV it returns no quotes and it returns semicolons. I have tried all kinds of different encodings and Save As in different formats in Excel and haven't found the right combination. I still use the CSV import/export a lot but it requires editing in a text editor.
My colleague often succeeds in the CSV import/export but not always. On another system we are using (SCADA platform), they introduced Excel import/export a few years ago and it is very smooth.
Kick Microsoft to the curb. I use Softmaker Office Planmaker; it defaults to a comma as the delimiter and you have several choices including double quotes as the text marker character . Available in both free and paid perpetual versions. I'm still using the 2021 version. I used the free version for years till I found some feature I needed that was only in the paid version. The whole suite at that time was like $50 for perpetual. I also have Libre Office which I use primarily for the word processor, but I just checked and the spreadsheet defaults to comma delimitation and double quotes for text, and gives you the option to quote every single field if you want. The only advantage I've ever seen for Excel is that it will use more than one core, so it will handle mammoth sheets better than the others.
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General Discussion / Re: New features wanted!! Apply here!
« Last post by Controls Guy on June 29, 2026, 02:29:47 PM »We would also like it to be an editor, not just a "view" of any "stage" ladder program (which is what DL does). Most likely, it would become its own "language" (ST or FBD or ?). Possibly, you would probably be able to "view" it in "LD", but not be able to "edit" in "LD".
I definitely agree that the SFC overview should be editable. I'd actually picture top level programming design taking place in those blocks and then you program the block and transition code after the structure is at least rough-drafted. So you're thinking not to have the SFC view be purely graphically edited, that there might be some underlying language defining the graph?
Quote
So layout would be part of the project - you basically lay it out how you like it. Not sure if we would have an "import" mechanism from LD to SG language. All this is TBD, but these are definitely desirable features.
Cool!
Another thing I think would be helpful is to have an exclusive divergence, like a switch case() for SFC. Note the transitions below the bus in this divergence, in addition to the one you'd normally expect above the bus. A lot of SFC implementations don't support this. You'd think you could simulate this by having an empty state just below the divergence bus, but no. By then you'd have committed to all the divergent threads so you have to run them all to completion to reconverge. I'm thinking you'd have to have a dedicated exclusive convergence to go with the exclusive divergence so that it knows it can proceed with only one thread complete.
Oh, and one other thing I'd like would be user-defined zooming/folding. You could take an SFC and put it inside a single SFC block, for a coarser overview. You'd then be able to zoom in to the full view, or maybe better would be to expand it so you can still see everything from the higher level view, but that block is no longer collapsed, but displayed in full.
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Do-more CPUs and Do-more Designer Software / Re: DM2 CPU?
« Last post by franji1 on June 29, 2026, 12:53:23 PM »From DMD we get a clean CSV with double quotes and commas. When my Excel installation saves the CSV it returns no quotes and it returns semicolons. I have tried all kinds of different encodings and Save As in different formats in Excel and haven't found the right combination. I still use the CSV import/export a lot but it requires editing in a text editor.
My colleague often succeeds in the CSV import/export but not always. On another system we are using (SCADA platform), they introduced Excel import/export a few years ago and it is very smooth.
Yeah, it appears your CSV Save-As mechanism in Excel has changed the delimiter from using a comma to using a semicolon. You may need that for OTHER application files that you are importing and or exporting from Excel (databases?). Not sure how to adjust Excel - but be careful - you might get Designer element documentation import/export working, but then break your SCADA import/export! You might need to utilize the Excel Export wizards every time you import or export (and not just use the "defaults" from the last time you did it).
Losing double quotes doesn't hurt Designer's import typically. Excel does a good job of retaining double quotes if the column contains text that also contains a comma or also contains a double quote. Designer exports every column in double quotes so that any import mechanism knows to treat it as TEXT. For example, a description might have the text "1", which Excel would interpret as a NUMERIC value, not as TEXT. Or it could contain something that starts with an EQUAL SIGN (looks like an Excel Macro). Then Excel would fail or mis-interpret or actually run the macro if it was NOT in double quotes (this is one "virus" mechanism). Again, this needs to be in double quotes.
I just tried the CSV export from Designer with lots of combinations of fields with and without double quotes in the actual data, and other fields with and without commas in the actual data, and combinations of the two. I imported those into Excel, then saved it (as Excel's CSV format, losing some of the Designer column level double quotes), then imported it back into Designer, and it worked (even though Excel stripped of the column level double quotes). I then exported that again from Designer and it MATCHED the ORIGINAL EXPORT. As long as the comma and double quote grammar is semantically identical, everything should work.
I do know Designer does NOT support Unicode text files it is trying to import. Designer does not support Unicode text inside edit fields. These could be other issues you might be seeing with Excel CSV files.
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Do-more CPUs and Do-more Designer Software / Re: DM2 CPU?
« Last post by Kristjan on June 29, 2026, 09:52:32 AM »Allowing nicknames to start with a number would be nice.
API read/write permissions. I know this has been discussed and there is a lot of security stuff to consider. But just thought I'd throw it in the mix.
Another feature I wanted to mention was some sort of AI integration interface but then again, I don't really know what to request
I have vague ideas about some sort of a handle (API or MCP) for AI tools towards DoMore Designer (ladder programming, documentation work, set up PID controllers, configure PLC etc). Since you already have an API, we should be able to make AI work towards that or create applications to connect via API.
API read/write permissions. I know this has been discussed and there is a lot of security stuff to consider. But just thought I'd throw it in the mix.
Another feature I wanted to mention was some sort of AI integration interface but then again, I don't really know what to request
I have vague ideas about some sort of a handle (API or MCP) for AI tools towards DoMore Designer (ladder programming, documentation work, set up PID controllers, configure PLC etc). Since you already have an API, we should be able to make AI work towards that or create applications to connect via API.