The new workflow is just so much less efficient now. I’ve spent over a year trying to give it a chance and get used to it, but it’s just wearing me down Everything now just needs so many clicks
Edit:
My perhaps more useful comments on this are:
remove the constant swapping of fullscreen panels e.g. alarm configuration panels (read: remove the fullscreen panels altogether)These are my biggest complaint for a few main reasons:
swapping panels take extra clicks, severely hamper efficiency, and they ruin the whole experience
you can’t see the previous panel which you might have wanted to reference. For example the other tags in the UDT.
you can’t change the selected tag that you’re editing without going back out of the fullscreen panel. If you wanted to change the same configuration for multiple tags i.e. changes in the same fullscreen panel for multiple tags, where you used to be able to select tag, select panel to show, change config, select other tag, change config, select other tag, change config, etc. Now it becomes: select tag, select panel to show in fullscreen, change config, close fullscreen panel (or multiple panels - think alarms), select new tag, select panel to show in fullscreen, change config, close fullscreen panel(s)… etc. It also interferes with quickly scanning through multiple tag configuration as you can’t use “flip-book-animation” comparison (if that makes sense)
This is also difficult in the table of properties as well for tag comparison as the table does not keep its position (and may not even be able to depending on tag configuration)
the wall of text (the property editor side) is far less intuitive and easy on the brain. In the old editor, items were laid out logically; they had their own place where they would always be, they had enough space to fully contain their values (opcitem path, documentation, etc.). I understand from a design perspective, it’s obviously easier to create a table of things rather than an interface for each field. But imagine giving an operator a SCADA screen that was simply a table of devices and a big list of all of their statuses and tag values. They would be very unhappy!
the drop down to edit property bindings decreases efficiency for me, as the only option I have ever andmost likely will ever use is “Edit…”. I’m sure this isn’t the case for everyone, and maybe this is one that can’t be improved upon. However, it would be even better if we could just edit it inline as you could in v7 e.g. the opcitempath. Also this particular field cuts bound values off at a character limit rather than using the width of the field which effectively forces you to click binding->Edit… to even see what it’s set to (this reminds me of one of the top reasons I never use UDDType properties in templates)
I think you’re talking about the tag browser not the editor, but definitely I know what you mean there as well. In fact I was thinking the exact same thing today when flicking between the vision client tags and the default tag provider. It’s very inconvenient that it collapses everything each swap. Also when you go from Vision to Perspective or to other modules (reporting/alarm pipelines/scripting/etc.)
I believe that the effort to overhaul the look and feel of the design environment has went too far in the case of the editor and the tag browser. In my opinion with each version 8 it has gotten worse.
I think the primary reason this has happened is those who develop this product and those who design projects with the product use it very very differently. I don’t make test windows with 10 tags. I have folders with hundreds of tags. So when I copy and paste a tag to make a quick change and the entire browser lurches to the top it is VERY FRUSTRATING!!! Why does the tag browser not stay fixed in the original location? Ignition developers for all that is good and right, PLEASE implement a scroll lock on the tag browser. It would make a world of difference and save so much time.
Ok. My rant is over. Thank you for coming to my TED talk.
Welcome to the world of "dog fooding". I have a very similar rant about the PLC programming package I use. The people who build it seem to have no idea about what features actually matter to users.
This is excellent feedback @nminchin - and thanks to everyone confirming this seemingly large pain point. Look out in your DMs everyone, I’d like to schedule some time to talk through this in more detail and really understand how we can make the tag editor more efficient for your workflows.
@brandon1 You nailed an evergreen challenge for our teams there, understanding the infinite use cases within the platform and removing roadblocks wherever possible. Rest assured we’re making big moves internally this year. A top goal is to improve our understanding of and testing against real customer deployments at scale, using datasets akin to what folks are working with daily in the field.
@brandon1 Your complaint about the scrolling of the editor is something I’ve already opened a ticket for - it just hasn’t been fixed yet it was fixed in 8.1.2. I feel your pain because I hit this all the time.
Imagine dropping tags between these bad boys.
Imagine parameter lookup, then pasting those variables right into the neighbor tag.
Imagine one day maybe even compare tags will be here, who knows…
I am often navigating between folders, checking parameters, OPC paths and such. Often to mimic a tag or similar UDT while creating or updating new UDT’s.
With 2 browsers you could
have one browser for UDT’s and for for actual tags.
Have several providers viewed at the same time. I think that there are several reasons why this could be useful.
Working with MQTT Engine, here you can see live values at the engine, while the referenced historical tags would be on your default provider.
Instead of working in a linear fashion where you would scroll between tags, you could work “cross-space”. Just like you have tabs in your editors, total/wincommander, emails, chats.
I guess for me, its all about not having to switch providers all the time. And having the opportunity to show me the information I really need.
With the previous tag browser you could at least see all providers at the same time, but this was not good either due to amount of scrolling(as the tag trees would often expand beyond the screen resolution).
Hi Ray, I’ve edited my OP with some better clarifications about what exactly it is I in particular don’t like about the new design. Hopefully these are a little more useful than just “I don’t like it”
Jokes on you. I’m a self employed contractor, so I get to have my coffee break, my lunch break or even the “I need to get out of my house and go on a mountain bike ride” break whenever I want
Everything now just needs so many clicks
how are you thinking you would use these?
