Please tell us what your experience has been with Do-more...

[Controls Guy]

Thanks!

[Controls Guy]

Also, I miss the old-style database editor.  I tend to plan memory allocation and enter a lot of the descriptions before entering ladder, especially for I/O.  And the current smart view is awkward because it doesn't show all elements.  It's much more efficient to use the table view then entering the elements one at a time and entering their descriptions.  Or, just update the CSV import so it will do multi-columns to description lines like RSLogix does, and I promise I'll never use the internal one again (and therefore won't be harassing you about what it does or doesn't do).

[BobO]

The problem (or benefit, some would say) is that you can document everything...structs, struct fields, elements, casts, in a PLC that has many more times as much memory than DL controllers. The possible documentable things are virtually infinite. That isn't very efficient in a table.

But we did actually consider that folks might want to do it the old way. It isn't a perfect answer, but, it will get you most of the eay there...if you had started out doing it this way. If you will press the Add Record button on the Doc View, then enter an element, say X0, then hit the Enter key...it will add an empty reference to X0 and auto-increment. As many times as you hit Enter, it will create a new empty record for you. The one caveat is that once it increments to a record that exists in the database, the auto-increment no longer works,, so you have to manually enter the next location and hit Enter again.

[BobO]

Oh...one more thing. Those entries that have an asterisk next to the element are not actual database records and will be removed when the project is closed. So when you come back...they won't be there.

[Controls Guy]

OK, that method sounds workable.  One extra step, but in exchange for the huge advantages of DM, WELL worth it.  Like you said, it would be almost impossible to do something so much more powerful and not have a small side effect here or there.

[BobO]

There was much discussion here. What about people who write code then document, people who document then write code, people who document while they code, etc? The conclusion was that as long as we provided a mechanism to approximate what was there before, the added benefit of being able to document "WX7:U" or "T3.Done" was far better than a honking huge table that many griped about already. The answer was to make it easy to insert stuff into the table. Perfect? No, but it kinda works one you know about it.

[Controls Guy]

I sense continued benign neglect for those of us who like reverse video display...

Some of the lines in the Xref display (though at least not the most critical ones) are still black, even in reverse video, and correspond to none of the settings in the color setup as far as I can see.

The real issue, however, seems to be with printing.  If you print not in B/W mode, it wants to print the ladder in white and other elements in the same bright colors as on the screen display, which is obviously not going to work.  If you do print in B/W mode, you lose color differentiation for addresses, comments, etc., so that's already a sacrifice, but it doesn't seem to work anyway.  I printed in B/W mode and one program printed accordingly, but the others reverted to color mode, so I can't print out ladder at all unless I revert to default color or (presumably) print out one program at a time.

What some (most?) other mfgrs do is allow printing colors to be configured separately from display colors.

PS.  I still really dislike the roundtangles.  On numeric points, the frame just wastes space, plus I don't like the shrunken font for both the element and status.  On bits it's even worse, because you have the same disadvantages with no corresponding advantage (simultaneous display of address and value) to compensate.  I'd rather just have both address and status in the same font as everything else and expand the box to accommodate.

I also had some weird situation where status was on and updating but wouldn't turn off, either with the status button or the No Status button (All Status and No Status: nice, BTW).  I restarted Designer and it was OK.  [shrug]

[BobO]

I'm sure we can touch up the colors issues. We'll make it work.

The element status thing is harder. We were trying to do a nice thing...giving you something you didn't have before...but honestly all it has done is invite complaint. The issue is that we are displaying two things in one cell. When you say "all you gotta do is..." you miss the bigger issue...there is no place to put it logically speaking...and to do so would require a significant rework to the display code...something we were trying not to do at this point. I don't guess I expect people to not complain, but the irony is that I don't know that I ever heard the complaint in DirectSoft, where we painted the status value only...no element or nickname. In an effort to fix a glaring problem, I guess we missed the mark and instead gave folks a new target.

The truth is that we want to do a significant refactor of the display and editor at some time in the not too distant future...possibly Rel 2.0. When we do that, we definitely rethink status displays.

[Controls Guy]

Right, I understand you have the internal architecture of your app to deal with and obviously I have no idea what the constraints are.  I did dislike the status-only displays in DL and did complain about it, but I hate this.  If I had to choose, and can't get both address and status in standard font, I'd rather go back to the old DL way.  Not that I want to do that, it's just that's how much I dislike the current situation.

[BobO]

Interesting. Never would've guessed that anyone would opt for less info. Mark, can we make DL style status an option?

It may not help you, but you can choose the default type face to be larger. Some folks have done so and have been satisfied.

[franji1]

PS.  I still really dislike the roundtangles.  On numeric points, the frame just wastes space, plus I don't like the shrunken font for both the element and status.  On bits it's even worse, because you have the same disadvantages with no corresponding advantage (simultaneous display of address and value) to compensate.  I'd rather just have both address and status in the same font as everything else and expand the box to accommodate.

What is your zoom level?  Try your zoom out to 125%.  It's much more readable.  I've had to do this with my IE browser - yes, I'm getting old.  Also, I've seen this look bad on bad monitors, and better on good monitors.  Let us know how 125% looks, if that is readable on your monitor.

[franji1]

Interesting. Never would've guessed that anyone would opt for less info. Mark, can we make DL style status an option?

Definitely - I'll look into it.

It may not help you, but you can choose the default type face to be larger. Some folks have done so and have been satisfied.

That is another option in addition to adjusting zooming level.

[BobO]

Was just playing with reverse video in 2D...definitely not optimal. We can and should do better. The whole color management thing really did not get any meaningful upgrade with Do-more. Again, we can and should do better.

One glaring problem is that cross reference is using the ladder display colors. In reverse video that works...um...poorly.

[Controls Guy]

Interesting. Never would've guessed that anyone would opt for less info.

Not really opting for less info.  I'd rather have two items I can read than one, but one I can read would still be more info than two that I can't, so in both cases the preference is actually for more rather than less

It may not help you, but you can choose the default type face to be larger. Some folks have done so and have been satisfied.

I haven't tried that, but it doesn't sound like it would work very well.  If I get the address/status cells readable, then everything else is going to be vastly TOO big, I assume.  I'll play with it and see how it works.  I've tried the zoom percentage, which didn't help, but I'm not sure if that and font size are the same or not.

[Controls Guy]

What is your zoom level?  Try your zoom out to 125%.  It's much more readable.  I've had to do this with my IE browser - yes, I'm getting old.  Also, I've seen this look bad on bad monitors, and better on good monitors.  Let us know how 125% looks, if that is readable on your monitor.

I already tried 125%, and the combo cells are still illegible to barely legible on my laptop (15", 1920 x 1200, excellent quality), while the non-combo text is already starting to be unreasonably large (this is from memory -- can't go online at the moment).