FactoryTalk View Studio- Change ALL of the tag names for new PLC?

I've copied a factorytalk gui from another system. The tags all point to the PLC name from the other system. The two PLCs will have a lot of the tags with the same names, just the PLC names are different. Does anyone know if I need to go through every button and reassign the tag to the current PLC, or is there any way to change the PLC name on all of the tags at once? Thanks for any help!

You don't really have to change the "PLC name". This is just a label for the path to the processor. Go into your network configuration, select the new path, maintain the same name, hit 'apply' and copy from design to runtime. Done.

Find and replace will save you time handling the rest.

Right, good point. In that case, the previous path label is something like "OldProjectCity PLC" so I changed this path label to avoid confusion. But maybe it's not worth if then I have to go in and change all the tags.

Try opening a screen, hitting "Ctrl+a" then "Ctrl+r"

This at least allows you to do a find and replace on the tags on that screen, though it does seem to ignore tags that are inside a group. To do those you have to open the group and the do the ctrl+a, ctrl+r again.

-Benaiah

If you are just changing PLC's change the shortcut on the communications, it can have same name just different point to location.

If you want to change all the tags I usually export to .csv file and edit in excel.
Delete all old tags and re-import changes.

Use the Search and Replace function if your using direct tags.

Changing the communications path is all you would want to change. Changing the shortcut name is probably not a good idea.

Every tag and every "reference" is expecting that old name to tell them which PLC with which they will exchange data. If you change the name, then all those tags and references will still be looking for the old name. This is something that runs throughout the application. Macros, datalog, tags. Not just the graphic displays. Even within the graphics you would have connections, animation, parameters, global objects.

If you were starting from scratch, sure change the name. But you have an application that is already developed and running. You want to make as few changes as possible.

As suggested, you can use Search & Replace to search for references to the old name and replace with the new name. But really, why change it at all.

OG

Thanks for the tips; the keyboard shortcuts have been really helpful! I will definitely recommend that we use a more generic path name in the future so we don't have to do this again.

Change Topic Name

Simply Export Graphics and Alarms etc to xml, Datalog, TagDataBase to csv, macros to whatever, etc
then use any Find and Replace (over multiple Files) Utility - Good Ones usually cost +/- $30 (something more than notepad)
Replace [OldName] with [NewName] (over multiple files)
Import and Replace or Overwrite etc.
Finally rename the Communication Topic
Including [ and ] reduces the likelihood of replacing part of a tag name that may coincidentally contain the topic name
Takes about 5 minutes for a medium sized project
Let import and export be your friend !
Copy the application first and experiment on the copy
YMMV

Back Up to APA before you do anything.

You can change the short cut with search and replace, or export to XML, use note pad ++ to do the entire directory where your exported XMLs are.

I don't think DataLog or Alarm triggers are captured in the search and replace.

My short cut is always non descriptive.

{[PLC]

nrwicks said:

simply export graphics and alarms etc to xml, datalog, tagdatabase to csv, macros to whatever, etc
then use any find and replace (over multiple files) utility - good ones usually cost +/- $30 (something more than notepad)
replace [oldname] with [newname] (over multiple files)
import and replace or overwrite etc.
Finally rename the communication topic
including [ and ] reduces the likelihood of replacing part of a tag name that may coincidentally contain the topic name
takes about 5 minutes for a medium sized project
let import and export be your friend !
Copy the application first and experiment on the copy
ymmv

Click to expand...

^ ftw