PvP 7 Win10 Screen Navigation

[JJH]

Greetings!

I have had the extreme pleasure of being introduced to Rockwell's Win10-based PanelView Plus 7 and after having an extraordinarily lovely time wrestling with the way the new format has to be configured before even attempting to work with it, I have now had the delightful surprise to find out that MER files which I had been loading onto the screens in the WinCE/FTV 10 now don't seem to work well with the new format. I'm specifically speaking of using GoToDisplay navigation buttons on the HMI to traverse from one screen to another.

Has anyone else had the benefit of this new added feature and if so, can I be educated on either how to fix it, or the best places to apply C4 to the screen to destroy it cmpletely?

 

[dmroeder]

Greetings!

I have had the extreme pleasure of being introduced to Rockwell's Win10-based PanelView Plus 7 and after having an extraordinarily lovely time wrestling with the way the new format has to be configured before even attempting to work with it, I have now had the delightful surprise to find out that MER files which I had been loading onto the screens in the WinCE/FTV 10 now don't seem to work well with the new format. I'm specifically speaking of using GoToDisplay navigation buttons on the HMI to traverse from one screen to another.

Has anyone else had the benefit of this new added feature and if so, can I be educated on either how to fix it, or the best places to apply C4 to the screen to destroy it cmpletely?

We've probably deployed 20 by now, while we've had our issues, I've never had an issue with GoToDisplay buttons. What exactly happens when you press them? Does the error banner come up complaining? Or simply nothing happens?

Years ago, I restored a MER and found that none of the goto display buttons worked anymore. Turned out, somehow the restore process appended a space at the end of all the screen names, therefore breaking the navigations. Not saying that is happening to you. Pick one screen navigation and re-point it to a screen, see if it works. Of course, you could test the application locally to see if the screen navigations are broken in the application, or if it is only broken when it runs in the terminal.

 

[JJH]

We've probably deployed 20 by now, while we've had our issues, I've never had an issue with GoToDisplay buttons. What exactly happens when you press them? Does the error banner come up complaining? Or simply nothing happens?

Years ago, I restored a MER and found that none of the goto display buttons worked anymore. Turned out, somehow the restore process appended a space at the end of all the screen names, therefore breaking the navigations. Not saying that is happening to you. Pick one screen navigation and re-point it to a screen, see if it works. Of course, you could test the application locally to see if the screen navigations are broken in the application, or if it is only broken when it runs in the terminal.

That's a good thought! No, I checked a number of the nav locations and they all appear to be normal, with no spaces. It does act like it's either not set or going to a blank space. I loaded the project up on my PC with "Running Man" and I get the same result, no navigation.

 

[dmroeder]

That's a good thought! No, I checked a number of the nav locations and they all appear to be normal, with no spaces. It does act like it's either not set or going to a blank space. I loaded the project up on my PC with "Running Man" and I get the same result, no navigation.

So it has nothing to do with the fact that you are using the newer series PanelView's, the application is broken.

In my case, the you wouldn't see the space when you edit the goto buttons, it was the screen name in the tree, and it wasn't obvious.

So have you tried to re-point any of the broken navigations yet to see if they work afterwards?

 

[JJH]

So it has nothing to do with the fact that you are using the newer series PanelView's, the application is broken.

In my case, the you wouldn't see the space when you edit the goto buttons, it was the screen name in the tree, and it wasn't obvious.

So have you tried to re-point any of the broken navigations yet to see if they work afterwards?

I thought the same thing but after doing that, still no navigation! I'd say the screen was funky but it's happening on Test on the PC, so it's gotta be something else, like you say.

 

[dmroeder]

I thought the same thing but after doing that, still no navigation! I'd say the screen was funky but it's happening on Test on the PC, so it's gotta be something else, like you say.

Does the information banner pop up with an error when you try to switch screens?

The only thing that comes to mind if you have re-selected the screen in the goto button is that a global connection setup so the PLC can control the current screen is preventing the screen from changing. Check the global connections to see if there is a tag that controls what screen the PanelView is on. If that were the case, you'd get the message banner popping up attempting to tell you this.

 

[JJH]

Does the information banner pop up with an error when you try to switch screens?

The only thing that comes to mind if you have re-selected the screen in the goto button is that a global connection setup so the PLC can control the current screen is preventing the screen from changing. Check the global connections to see if there is a tag that controls what screen the PanelView is on. If that were the case, you'd get the message banner popping up attempting to tell you this.

Also a good thought. I took a look at that but that all seems OK. This is a regular ol' machine program with some regular ol' screens that have worked for several years. The only change is the screen itself.

I did remove two of the nav buttons and redo them but same results. Also to note, other objects work fine, like momentary, maintained buttons, as well as numeric entries (when run individually in the development environment).

 

[dmroeder]

The only change is the screen itself.

But again, this doesn't work on your machine, so the terminal would be irrelevant. The difference here is FTVS ME version. Have you been using the same FTVSME version this whole time?

You said you looked at it, but my questions still haven't been answered.

Does the message banner pop up when you try to change screens, if so, what does it say?

Are there remote screen navigation setup in the global connections?

 

[plvlce]

Does the information banner pop up with an error when you try to switch screens?

The only thing that comes to mind if you have re-selected the screen in the goto button is that a global connection setup so the PLC can control the current screen is preventing the screen from changing. Check the global connections to see if there is a tag that controls what screen the PanelView is on. If that were the case, you'd get the message banner popping up attempting to tell you this.

My experience has been that you do not get any message if you try to change screen in this scenario, GoToDisplay buttons just silently do nothing.

 

[JJH]

But again, this doesn't work on your machine, so the terminal would be irrelevant. The difference here is FTVS ME version. Have you been using the same FTVSME version this whole time?

You said you looked at it, but my questions still haven't been answered.

Does the message banner pop up when you try to change screens, if so, what does it say?

Are there remote screen navigation setup in the global connections?

You may have been right about the Global Connections. I have a small piece of logic that resets the screen to a Main Screen after a password has been entered (to keep those pesky operators from mucking about), but I can't see why it would 'freeze' the nav buttons. I just added a cheat by loading a fake screen number on an S:FS and after the programs start running, it fixes the screen display and away we go.

So odd!

 

[dmroeder]

My experience has been that you do not get any message if you try to change screen in this scenario, GoToDisplay buttons just silently do nothing.

By default, it does for sure throw up a message if the "goto" control has a value in it other than 0 when you try to navigate to another display. I just tested it on a machine.

 

[JJH]

By default, it does for sure throw up a message if the "goto" control has a value in it other than 0 when you try to navigate to another display. I just tested it on a machine.

I never answered that question: No, I never got a message box about "I can't do that", so I think the screen was just frozen there due to the Global Connection for some reason. Very strange, as I mentioned, this is a mature program so I can't see how that logic would affect anything, unless it's got something to do with it being faster than the old screens and it's missing a handshake.

 

[plvlce]

By default, it does for sure throw up a message if the "goto" control has a value in it other than 0 when you try to navigate to another display. I just tested it on a machine.

Just tried it on a machine myself (set the tag from the PLC to a number I know is not used and then tried HMI's GoToDisplay buttons) and did not get any message. It's possible a setting has been changed to non-default, or perhaps we are on different firmware.

 

[JJH]

Just tried it on a machine myself (set the tag from the PLC to a number I know is not used and then tried HMI's GoToDisplay buttons) and did not get any message. It's possible a setting has been changed to non-default, or perhaps we are on different firmware.

I have been using FTV Ver10 for a few years, which the screens had been developed on. I inadvertently downloaded that version into this screen, which is V12, and it did "work" (Rockwell says that V12 will work on MERs all the way back to Ver8) but I got the same deal with the nav buttons. That's why I brought everything up to V12, thinking that was the issue.

I believe there is some sort of odd handshake disconnect happening between the new screen and the Global Connection/PLC as this has never happened before. That's why it's thrown me for a loop!

 

[dmroeder]

Just tried it on a machine myself (set the tag from the PLC to a number I know is not used and then tried HMI's GoToDisplay buttons) and did not get any message. It's possible a setting has been changed to non-default, or perhaps we are on different firmware.

Not sure, it can be disabled under Startup > Information Messages.