Modbus/TCP to Cognex Insight

[BobO]

I agree about the laptop screen issue.  Since I got a 17inch laptop screen, its not so bad. However on the factory floor, the techs seem to always be ones with the worst laptops. Most are hand me downs from management with 14 and 15 inch low res screens.

Ouch.

[Mike Nash]

I am going to jump in also on the Data View vs Memory View issue even though it is a Cognex thread and I haven't actually gotten to USE the Memory View yet.

I personally don't mind Data View so much, but it does take a good bit of time trying to set it up for what I need to look at right now, which is a moving target. I haven't played with 1.4 enough yet to see if the editing of values is better now (it has been a sore point in DS for years due to all the clicks and moves required to actually change the value.)

What I have noticed in Memory View that I would like to see "improved" even more is:

1) The update time does need to be faster at times.
   (Sometimes I am looking to find just what is changing while troubleshooting)

2) I want to at least see the nickname and description with a mouse hover or even with
   a click or cursor over. In other words, I don't have that good a memory even though I
   also tend to like to group my registers. If it is there, I haven't yet found
   it. For me it kind of blows the whole idea of letting DMD assign addresses to
   nicknames "wherever".

[Controls Guy]

I agree about the laptop screen issue.  Since I got a 17inch laptop screen, its not so bad. However on the factory floor, the techs seem to always be ones with the worst laptops. Most are hand me downs from management with 14 and 15 inch low res screens.

I've always tended to the heavy-duty desktop-replacement type laptops, at the cost of weight and to some extent, bulk.  Mine is 15.5", 1920x1200, so I'm not skimping except for not having gone to 17" yet, but even at 1920x1200, there's only so much real estate on a machine you can carry in there with you.

My partner's nice machine is 14" 1366x768, and he also uses a 10" Asus with XP!  For programming!

[BobO]

I haven't played with 1.4 enough yet to see if the editing of values is better now (it has been a sore point in DS for years due to all the clicks and moves required to actually change the value.)

Set the option to enable editing by default and turn off confirmation...never enable or confirm every again. Double clicking the discrete entry button writes the value instantly. Pressing Shift-F9 from the edit field of a non-bit value writes it. Everyone complains, yet no-one seems to use the make-this-work-better features. I use the mouse very little while working with a Data View, and I edit and write values very quickly.

1) The update time does need to be faster at times.
   (Sometimes I am looking to find just what is changing while troubleshooting)

We're going to open it up to run as fast as Data View.

2) I want to at least see the nickname and description with a mouse hover or even with
   a click or cursor over. In other words, I don't have that good a memory even though I
   also tend to like to group my registers. If it is there, I haven't yet found
   it. For me it kind of blows the whole idea of letting DMD assign addresses to
   nicknames "wherever".

All of this comes back to the discussion of tag-based versus conventional. Do-more allows both.

I like the idea of adding a mini doc-dump hover.

[BobO]

Along the same lines...but more biased toward the tag-based side...we are going to add a user specified sort order to the documentation db in Rel 2. We are currently envisioning a two tiered hierarchy, where n doc records can be associated with a group record, and both individual records and groups can be shuffled around or hidden in the doc view. Those folks who are less concerned about where something is in memory can create logical groupings the same way y'all are doing within a particular memory area...but those groups can be heterogeneous data. Of course the two approaches are not mutually exclusive and can easily work well together.

We see a few other other nice things happen with that rework of the doc db...like being able to specify a display format with each element record, or right clicking on the group entry and creating a Data View or Trend view with the contents of the group. Sadly, groups wouldn't project into Memory Views since they are homogeneous memory only, but for the less DV-phobic, it will provide a very quick-and-dirty way to view group data...without having to manually construct a Data View.

And for you Steve...we are already looking at what it will take to add a laptop-friendly full screen mode that will allow every window to show up as an MDI child. Of course we are going to do the reciprocal as well, every MDI will also be able to become a floatable, so I can smear 6 ladder views across my 3 x 22" desktop.

[Controls Guy]

Set the option to enable editing by default and turn off confirmation...never enable or confirm every again. Double clicking the discrete entry button writes the value instantly.

Knew about this one and use it.

Pressing Shift-F9 from the edit field of a non-bit value writes it. Everyone complains, yet no-one seems to use the make-this-work-better features. I use the mouse very little while working with a Data View, and I edit and write values very quickly.

Sorry, I guess I fall into that category today!  Didn't know about Shift-F9 (though as you note, now that we have MV's I'll probably use DV's a lot less anyway), but I'll try to remember it and start using it.

We're going to open it up to run as fast as Data View.

Thank you!  [hat tip]  As I've noted before, your MV surpasses AB's in a lot of respects, so better speed is all it needs to make it a great troubleshooting tool.  And, in the event I ever do an MV with thousands of registers showing, I'm really not going to object to a 5 or 10 or 20 second update rate.

Oh, one other question/request regarding MV's.  AB, like you guys, will allow casts of INT's of various lengths to bits and viewing bit files as INTs (including manual writes).  Not sure if this capability is currently in MV's but if not, I'd like to request it for some distant future release.  Not a super huge deal.

[Controls Guy]

And for you Steve...we are already looking at what it will take to add a laptop-friendly full screen mode that will allow every window to show up as an MDI child. Of course we are going to do the reciprocal as well, every MDI will also be able to become a floatable, so I can smear 6 ladder views across my 3 x 22" desktop.

A million thanks!   And yeah, more options is [almost] always the best solution, so people can configure to how they work.

[BobO]

2) I want to at least see the nickname and description with a mouse hover or even with
   a click or cursor over. In other words, I don't have that good a memory even though I
   also tend to like to group my registers. If it is there, I haven't yet found
   it. For me it kind of blows the whole idea of letting DMD assign addresses to
   nicknames "wherever".

Think we already have a couple of possible answers to this. As you move your mouse over a field, it will display the element and nickname in the status bar...and...hitting F9 is going to pull up the Element Browser with the currently selected field, giving you access to the entire doc record.

[Mike Nash]

This sounds like it will work for me. My primary need for the Memory View tends more towards offline values access for support and setting values prior to having the system built and powered (since that means I have about 4 hours before others want it out the door ) I don't tend to have huge numbers of registers.

[ATU]

so I can smear 6 ladder views across my 3 x 22" desktop.

Only 22"?  You're slipping behind the curve Bobo. Earlier this year, I was at a customer site for a few weeks and the only desk available was in the finance department. Some of those people had twin monitors and they had to have been at least 30+ and with sharp detail.  Ah man, they could really fly across those spread sheets!   No wonder the poor guy in maintenance can't get a decent laptop.

[Garyhlucas]

Hey if we are all going to suck for stuff here, PLEASE make it possible to copy an element instead of the whole rung!  Please! please? plee....

[Controls Guy]

I believe that's either in the works or already done and will be in v2.0 or maybe even v1.4.2! (I really like that one too)

[franji1]

Hey if we are all going to suck for stuff here, PLEASE make it possible to copy an element instead of the whole rung!  Please! please? plee....

This one is in 1.4.2, which is due out very soon.  Cut/copy/paste individual instructions within a project or between projects.

[Controls Guy]

Including drag-n-drop?

[Controls Guy]

Only 22"?  You're slipping behind the curve Bobo. Earlier this year, I was at a customer site for a few weeks and the only desk available was in the finance department. Some of those people had twin monitors and they had to have been at least 30+ and with sharp detail.  Ah man, they could really fly across those spread sheets!   No wonder the poor guy in maintenance can't get a decent laptop.

But to be fair, the price of some decent laptops for production people is gonna look really big on 60" worth of monitor!