does anyone actually like 505 workshop?

[diat150]

The whole program frustrates me. I dont have as much experience with it as with rslogix and versapro but the flow of those two programs seems much easier to troubleshoot than workshop.

 

[Ken Moore]

I like it.

Workshop is the first windows based software for the 505 platform. It is leaps and bounds ahead of the old DOS based Ti-Soft.

You can have a window open on the ladder logic, Special Functions, Loops and alarms, all at the same time, makes trouble shooting much easier. The search function is greatly improved. Plus, for those migrating from Ti-soft, all the hot keys are the same.

When you say it doesn't flow like the other two, you have to remember the 505 plc's are a different platform, most of the programming features are dependent on the PLC. But the flow for the ladder is the same, left to right, top to bottom.
Are the SFPGM's the reason for the dislike? When the LL has a SFPGM box, you have to go see what the SFPGM is doing. In the DOS days, you had to exit the ladder to see the SFPGM, with Workshop, you can just open the SFPGM in a separate window and analyze both at once.
Sadly when Siemens bought the 505 line from TI, they pretty much stopped all development, there hasn't been any significant development since the early to mid-90's.

 

[nswu1]

The worst thing about it was the dongle key.