RSLogix5000… Some Descriptions Grayed Out

[kstiles1499]

Hi all.. first time posting here

I have a small question about my controller tags. When monitoring alias tags, some of the descriptions are grayed out. Picture attached. I’m trying to figure out what is causing this? They aren’t unused tags.
The reason I’m investigating is because I recently exported the tags to an excel spreadsheet and I had to manually fill in the descriptions for the ones that are greyed out. I know the standard tags have a white background and the safety tags have a gray background but I’m talking about the text itself on the safety tags.

Thanks in advance for the help!

[Ken Roach]

Welcome to the PLCTalk forum community ! You have chosen an excellent question for your first post.

The answer is surprisingly simple: the description text that appears in gray is for the Base tag, not for the Alias that links to it.

Because there is descriptive information attached to the base tag, RA figures you might want to know about it because you created an Alias, so it's shown in the Tag database view. It's just more subtle, in-the-background, soft-toned. Like a blue-gray October sky.

But it's not present when you Export because it's not actually attached to the Alias tag.

[kstiles1499]

Originally Posted by Ken Roach

Welcome to the PLCTalk forum community ! You have chosen an excellent question for your first post.

The answer is surprisingly simple: the description text that appears in gray is for the Base tag, not for the Alias that links to it.

Because there is descriptive information attached to the base tag, RA figures you might want to know about it because you created an Alias, so it's shown in the Tag database view. It's just more subtle, in-the-background, soft-toned. Like a blue-gray October sky.

But it's not present when you Export because it's not actually attached to the Alias tag.

Thanks, Ken! I’m more green to 5000 than I am to Logix 5 & 500.
I’m going to watch some more videos on tags.

[kstiles1499]

Originally Posted by Ken Roach

Because there is descriptive information attached to the base tag, RA figures you might want to know about it because you created an Alias, so it's shown in the Tag database view.

Quick follow up as I’m thinking more into this.

1. Would it be correct to say that in this case, the programmer created a base tag and listed its i/o location, wrote a description for it, then later created an alias tag off of that base tag, listed an alias name, but then did not write a description for the alias?

2. If so, what would happen in the tag database if both the base and the alias had two different descriptions? My gut tells me it would just list the alias description in normal text.

[cwal61]

Originally Posted by kstiles1499

Quick follow up as I’m thinking more into this.

1. Would it be correct to say that in this case, the programmer created a base tag and listed its i/o location, wrote a description for it, then later created an alias tag off of that base tag, listed an alias name, but then did not write a description for the alias?

2. If so, what would happen in the tag database if both the base and the alias had two different descriptions? My gut tells me it would just list the alias description in normal text.

You're correct on both.

A DINT works the same way. If you describe a DINT then the description is shown on all bits of the DINT. If you provide a description for a bit, then it will be shown. Using the bits in the program will show the DINT overall description if the individual bit does not have its own. It will also show "grayed out" in the rung logic but if you click the description to edit, it will be blank.

[kstiles1499]

cwal61,

Thanks so much for the confirmation. Had a feeling but wanted to be sure.

[mylespetro]

Originally Posted by cwal61

You're correct on both.

A DINT works the same way. If you describe a DINT then the description is shown on all bits of the DINT. If you provide a description for a bit, then it will be shown. Using the bits in the program will show the DINT overall description if the individual bit does not have its own. It will also show "grayed out" in the rung logic but if you click the description to edit, it will be blank.

When I saw the title of the thread, this was what I assumed the answer was going to be. For example, if you have a DINT tag called TEST and you put "This is a test tag" in the description for that tag and expand it, you will see that TEST.1, TEST.2...TEST.31 will all have "This is a test tag" in light grey text in the description field. You should then be able to overwrite individual bit descriptions, e.g. make the description of TEST.1 "This is a different description than the overall DINT."