PhilipW
Member
I seemed fated to this thread!
Direct Tags: In all other HMI's you have ever used, all the tags you have used to animate objects, or write to, have been defined in a "tag database" where you had to create a name for the tag, specify the node or access path to the plc, and then specify the address within the plc. Plus you got to define things like datatype, units, scaling, etc.
With Direct Tags whenever you want to create a connection between an object, for example a "Numeric Display", instead of going through all the above work, all you do is click on a button in the "Connection Tab", and viola an "OPC Tag Browser" window opens, which allows you to navigate to all the data tables in the Online PLC and directly create a connection to the address you want. (Or if it is a CLX processor the Offline PLC project is available to browse as well.) It's literally the work of 2-3 seconds to browse to the actual live PLC address you want, click on it, and the exact connection with the exact syntax is fully defined.
This is a huge reduction in time and error-prone work, especially at the later stages of the development when you want to be addding or changing those extra tags that got overlooked or have been created since the original tag import at the outset.
Test Run is another powerful feature. When editing in Studio you can do two forms of Test Run. The simplest and quickest is to click the "Run" button, and the page you are on will connect to the live PLC, update all the tag values, and animate. This is extremely quick and simple to do.
At Ver3.2 you can also ask from within Studio to do a project compile and do a full project runtime on you PC. ie you get to test the whole application from your PC exactly as if it where running on the PV+ terminal.
Direct Tags: In all other HMI's you have ever used, all the tags you have used to animate objects, or write to, have been defined in a "tag database" where you had to create a name for the tag, specify the node or access path to the plc, and then specify the address within the plc. Plus you got to define things like datatype, units, scaling, etc.
With Direct Tags whenever you want to create a connection between an object, for example a "Numeric Display", instead of going through all the above work, all you do is click on a button in the "Connection Tab", and viola an "OPC Tag Browser" window opens, which allows you to navigate to all the data tables in the Online PLC and directly create a connection to the address you want. (Or if it is a CLX processor the Offline PLC project is available to browse as well.) It's literally the work of 2-3 seconds to browse to the actual live PLC address you want, click on it, and the exact connection with the exact syntax is fully defined.
This is a huge reduction in time and error-prone work, especially at the later stages of the development when you want to be addding or changing those extra tags that got overlooked or have been created since the original tag import at the outset.
Test Run is another powerful feature. When editing in Studio you can do two forms of Test Run. The simplest and quickest is to click the "Run" button, and the page you are on will connect to the live PLC, update all the tag values, and animate. This is extremely quick and simple to do.
At Ver3.2 you can also ask from within Studio to do a project compile and do a full project runtime on you PC. ie you get to test the whole application from your PC exactly as if it where running on the PV+ terminal.
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