FactoryTalk SE - A few pointers

[jazuk1970]

Hi guys,
I'm pretty new to FactoryTalk (SE) but have a fair knowledge of Intouch/iFix (Yes i'm learning to forget everything I know about those for SE lol).

I've a couple of questions I hope someone can give me a few pointers on.

1. I'd like to pass "TEXT" to a macro and can't seem to do this? In my example i've an HMI tag: myTag of type memory string.
If i have in a macro (myMacro):
myTag = "Some Text"
then everything is ok however if i call myMacro "Some Text"
and modify the macro:
myTAG = %1
i get "Failed to resolve item's ID 'Some Text' because it does not exist on any server.
Clearly its taking %1 as a tag, is there anyway to tell the macro treat it as a literal string?

2. Is there any better reference material for the VBA implementation in SE?
I've seen a few posts on here about the VBA and it looks like seriously hard work compared to the likes of iFix and Intouch etc. (setting a tag value for example?)

Thanks in advance.. and hoping to avoid insanity.. otherwise back to old school long hand each time..

 

[ASF]

Welcome to the forum!

I don't know of a way to do what you're asking offhand - but then, I've never used a macro in SE, because I can attach enough commands to a standard button that there seems to be no point wrapping it up into a macro!

Can we perhaps take a step back and describe what you're trying to achieve in a wider sense? It may be that there's a simpler way to achieve it all round.

(and when I say "simpler", I mean "completely different to the way you would have thought to do it, but just happens to work really well in SE" )

 

[jazuk1970]

Thanks for the response ASF.

Actually I was trying to do several things all of which are just to make my life easier (being lazy really) such as create a "generic" navigation button which i can set with parameters etc to fill in the name of the button, call the correct display to open and set a tag in the "header/top bar" which shows the description of the current display.

I have found other ways to do these things as you say putting multi commands on buttons, having multiple statements in the display "start-up" box etc. But i want to change further down the line its more work than simply modifying a common macro.

Not to worry.. i'll carry on.. I've yet to look at Alarms and Security lol.. I'm sure much fun to be had.

 

[ASF]

No doubt! Well, enjoy - for what it's worth, I have my navigation bar permanently docked to the bottom of the screen generally, so that I don't have to copy it onto every display.

Good luck!