A bit OT: Do You Use All Caps In AutoCAD & PLC descriptors?

[dogleg43]

When I started as a controls engineer way back in the ‘80s everyone used all caps when documenting PLS programs and in AutoCAD. This was still what I saw up into 2020 when I retired and seemed to be the de facto standard.

Just curious if this still exists?

 

[JeremyM]

All caps in most forms of programming is a plague.

All caps in CAD is useful in distinguishing an ‘1’ from ‘l’ in prints and stuff that sees a job site. One can pretty reliably put more stuff, smaller stuff, on a drawing with all caps.

 

[dmroeder]

All caps in most forms of programming is a plague.

All caps in CAD is useful in distinguishing an ‘1’ from ‘l’ in prints and stuff that sees a job site. One can pretty reliably put more stuff, smaller stuff, on a drawing with all caps.

I'm on board with this.

I still use caps in CAD, but nothing else. For many years, our alarm banners on HMI's were all caps, that was one of the last things I got rid of. My thought process was, everyone hates caps in an email, why would we expect operators to like it?

 

[LadderLogic]

My thought process was, everyone hates caps in an email, why would we expect operators to like it?

They don't have to like it, they are supposed to be alerted with it. Everyone hates the piercing noise of a fire alarm bit it is made nasty for a reason.

 

[parky]

I use caps where they are required i.e. at the start of a sentence, If I put in a symbol in a comment then as I tend to use either all caps (not very often just to highlight part of a symbol) or at least as it is in the symbol, On HMI's again most things like button text are caps where alarms tends to be as required & text fields can be either it all depends on the size.

 

[dmroeder]

They don't have to like it, they are supposed to be alerted with it. Everyone hates the piercing noise of a fire alarm bit it is made nasty for a reason.

They are alerted, by the horn. It's not like they're standing in front of the screen waiting for something to change. We have operators on a plant floor, not in a control room. Besides, caps doesn't mean better alerted, color does the job

 

[L33er]

There is a big guy with small hands who uses all CAP lately when nothing going good for him.

 

[glennz]

Not OT at all. Oh, the pet peeves...

Whatever you do/decide, please DO NOT WRITE YOUR RUNG DESCRIPTIONS IN ALL CAPS. IT'S DIFFICULT TO READ.

Just write them in grammatically correct, plain English (or whatever your local language) sentences.

"This rung (or series of rungs if applicable) controls pumps 1, 2 and 3 sequencing in conformance with Specification Section 1.23.A, page x: [then quote and/or copy/paste the exact text]." Then additional detail for following rungs/elements if required for clarity.

Sometimes all you see is "SEQUENCE PUMPS". And that's it. Or nothing at all, which is of course even worse.

In the Rockwell world, I use all caps for I/O descriptions (yea, even those are often missing), and Controller-scoped tag names and descriptions. Program-scoped are normal (lower case, leading cap).

I/O descriptions should match your drawings or specifications *exactly*...another thing that seems to be hard to do for some.


Somewhere I have an entire book (in PDF) someone authored on the subject of program documentation in the computer world, like C and stuff. I found most of it applicable in our world.

 

[I_Automation]

In CAD and PLC descriptions I limit caps:


Robot ALARM
Servo ERROR
Temperature FAULT


Never in rung comments in a program as mentioned above



In CAD if I had a CR-ALARM that would be in caps above the coil and contact icons, but in the right column with descriptions I follow the PLC descriptions I mentioned above. IE - Alarm CR for CR-ALARM.

 

[theColonel26]

All caps is the plague in any medium. HMI, PLC, CAD.

Title case is easier to read.

 

[JeffKiper]

I had a customer that wanted all CAP in a PLC for external tags and lowercase for internal tags. It was hus dollars so he got what he wanted.

VFD_SPD_REF from the HMI
vfd_enable from the logic.

 

[Tom Jenkins]

I still use all caps on drawings, but not program documentation. That's a carryover from the stone age when I learned hand lettering on a real drawing board. The lettering was always in all caps because it was more legible. It is still the norm for drawings, and I feel uncomfortable seeing lowercase letters on a drawing.

I also use all caps if I include a P&ID identification in a program's descriptor. That's so it matches the drawing.

 

[dogleg43]

OP here: thanks for the replies. I was jus curious.
Everyone used all caps when I started so I just followed suit )Ford, GM, Chrysler, steel plants, etc.).

Of course this was waaay before cell phone texting and all of the internet noise. Heck, apparently no caps AND no punctuation is the norm now. I’m not sure who arbitrarily decided all caps is harder to read but times do change.

 

[PLC Pie Guy]

I prefer to use regular English for rung comments etc.

ButIPreferBumpyTextForTagNamesLikeThis!

 

[JesperMP]

Schematics text descriptions I use upper - lower case just like I would write any other text.
The font size must not be too small !
I use upper caps to highlight something important. I.e. "Oil pressure is ok" vs. "oil pressure is NOT ok".
All upper case texts are more difficult to read, at least to me.

Component tags are defined by certain standards, and are always in upper case.
Component tags are identical in the schematics and in the PLC program.

PLC addresses follows certain standards, and are always in upper case, i.e. "I 0.5", "Q 2.2". I prefer to use a space to separate the address type and the address number.
PLC addresses are identical in the schematics and in the PLC program.

edit:
When writing program in structured text for example, reserved keywords are all caps but variables are written in the 'natural' way, but with underscores instead of spaces.
I.e. IF Condition_high THEN Alarm_high := TRUE ;
This is where you can have some really heated debates as to what is 'right'.

I’m not sure who arbitrarily decided all caps is harder to read but times do change.

Have you ever seen a book, newspaper or magazine printed in all caps only ?
The question should be, why did someone decide that all caps is the standard for texts in the computer world ?