How can I Improve display loading times or create a loading screen?

[MarjoramMask]

Hello everyone!

I have a unique problem that I am trying to solve. The load times between screens on my HMI are pretty standard, but 2 of the more complex displays are a bit slower to load and all of the elements display in their error state for a brief moment before it fully loads. I was wondering if there was a way to increase the loading speed between displays or have a loading window to cover everything up until it has finished loading all the elements. I have already removed all the HMI tags and replaced them with direct references to the PLC tags, as well as reduced the max tag update rate to the minimum for each display. I saw that with Site Edition you could pre-cache displays, but the option to do so is not available in the display settings, so maybe there's a solution there but I can't figure it out. I have a PanelView Plus 7 and I use FactoryTalk View Studio ME, release version 12.00.00 for the program, as well as an Allen Bradley 1769-L24ER-QB1B CompactLogix 5370 Controller.

Thanks in advance!

 

[A_G]

Welcome to the forum! Here is a possible easy solution: add some text to the top of the slow screen that says "please wait while screen loads". Use visibility animation on the HMI, and a timer in the PLC, to only have this text visible for 30 seconds (or however long it usually takes for the screen to load). I did something like this for a customer once and it seemed to eliminate their confusion

 

[MarjoramMask]

That's not a bad idea. Does text render immediately, before other elements?

 

[A_G]

That's not a bad idea. Does text render immediately, before other elements?

I'm not sure. Do you have a screen title text and does it load faster? Worth a try?

 

[MarjoramMask]

I'll check and report back. Thanks for the idea!

 

[Operaghost]

I would have thought HMI tags would load faster since the data is local to the PV. They may not be as up-to-date as direct references, but they would have a stored value that would display immediately. After a moment that value might change once it has updated with the current value from the controller. But at least you wouldn't see an error or a blank value.

OG

 

[doctord]

can not remember for sure on RSView but I have in the past had the screen open the back ground and just bring to front instead of loading to get around this issue. Then return to background instead of closing when switching the screen.