Filter reference data in TIA versus Simatic Manager

[orense]

Hi,

I have recently gone full in on TIA after holding on to Simatic Manager.
One thing which I find more difficult is the filter function for reference data.
As per attached picture, you can see the old filter function, where one could specify the DB one wants to find in the program. Very easy.

In TIA this seems to be more difficult, and the program block folder in the project list them by name of the DBs and not the number of the DB.

Does anyone know how we can filter DBs to find them easily in the TIA program?

 

[Rob...]

Right click on the DB and cross reference, it will show a list of all areas parts of that DB are used.

For other reference data information like S7 go to the "program info" tab on the left, just above local modules and distributed IO

 

[JesperMP]

My angle to using the references in TIA is always to ..
.. either when an code block is open and you are looking at a relevant address, select it in this view and use F11.
.. or when you do not have the variable in view in the editor, open the DB via the project tree and navigate to the structure or single variable in question, select it and use F11.

Since TIA is much more symbolically oriented than STEP7 Classic, I find that it takes a bit more effort to find the variables of interest.

 

[Rob...]

When I'm following tags, global or local in the program. I usually have the info/cross reference tab open.

If you click on a DB with this view open it will also display a cross reference without having to open another window.

 

[L D[AR2P#0.0]]

You can view the blocks in block order using the overview.

 

[Thomas_v2]

And just as a note, the reference data of TIA portal does not find all references as you'd expect from your experiences you have with Step7. For example, if you have 16 bools in a "not optimized" datablock, and someone writes to the complete word with absolute adressing, then it's not found by the reference data, which was possible in Step7 with the show overlapping access option.

 

[RVaughan]

And just as a note, the reference data of TIA portal does not find all references as you'd expect from your experiences you have with Step7. For example, if you have 16 bools in a "not optimized" datablock, and someone writes to the complete word with absolute adressing, then it's not found by the reference data, which was possible in Step7 with the show overlapping access option.

True!

Portal is very much tag-based, and the programmer should switch to tag-based thinking if possible. orense mentioned finding DBs by block number. But block numbers don't matter so long as they are unique. In the future blocks may not have numbers at all. If numbering is important, include that information in the name.
Same with tags. The Styleguide recommendations always using optimized DB tags and abandoning the M table so there are no absolute addresses.


Now for a tip:

Try using Cross References, which opens in the Working Area, rather than Cross Reference Information, which opens in the Inspector Window (bottom frame).

There are two toolbar buttons with horizontal blue bars. One of them marks tags with overlapping access. The other adds an overlapping tag's cross references to the window (if I remember correctly).