[BUG-11579,11395,11580,11586] Issues With UDT Creation/Editing

Ignition Early Access
1

New issues with UDT:

Unable to add tags to the UDT.

Unable to edit OPC Item Path of existing tag from the Imported UDT.

Unable to add Parameter to UDT.

Cannot add tag change scripts to tags in UDT.

Seems that there are issues with the Tag Editor in general…

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I am breaking some of the issues you have noted into new topics to keep things organized.

For the issues noted in this post, were you attempting to edit the UDT definition via the Tag Editor or via the Tag Browser? Currently the members of the UDT can only be added via the Tag Browser itself. You will select the definition of the UDT you created in the Tag Browser and add members like you would any normal tag. For example:

Screen Shot 2018-11-07 at 11.22.42 AM.png1182×1036 84.5 KB

As for editing the OPC Item Path or any of the other parameters, is this something that is sporadic or does it happen all the time? We are trying to track down an issue where dialogs will sometimes can not be interacted with. We have found forcing the designer to redraw (like clicking on Reports and then back to Vision) tends to resolve the issue, but it can be really frustrating.

3

a couple of additional things I’ve noticed with the UDTs thus far (aside from what has been mentioned above)

  • No OPC server drop down/default OPC server (must be specified manually)

  • Looks like the built-in parameters are not working (e.g. {TagName} – contradicts the new manual) – unfortunate as I had been using this to enforce consistency with the PLC UDTs by specifying the OPC paths as {OPCItem}.{TagName}

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also noticed that we can delete UDT definitions while tag instances exist – not sure if this is intentional… would think the instances would be dependent on the definition

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Yes, I was using Tag Editor to try to edit the imported UDT’s.

Today, I uninstalled and reinstalled 8.0.0B; some of my problems were not present today. I am still unable to edit UDT’s from the Tag Editor, but the UDT’s are importing and functional.

I do miss the dropdowns for selecting the OPC Server and OPC Item Path.

6

The OPC server drop down issue is known and will be added at some point in the future. The pre-defined UDT parameters I have created an issue for. Thank you for pointing out they aren't working.

This is allowed in 7.9 versions of Ignition as well, but there is a warning that isn't present in 8.0. A ticket will be added regarding this aspect being missing.

Would it be possible to post a screenshot of your Tag editor so I can understand what you are seeing? Certain items of of the UDT can only be edited by clicking the binding icon to the right of the text. It isn't intuitive and I am curious if that is what the problem is.

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Below are examples from an imported UDT:

Unable to enter or edit test in OPC Item Path:

image.png880×421 57.7 KB

After clicking the “binding button”, you will notice the “OK” and “Apply” buttons are not accessible.

8

Parameters in UDTs are no longer simply string substitutions. You must use expressions to concatenate, etc, just like any other tag reference.

1 Like
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You should be able to edit the item and click the check mark at the top to accept the change. Due to the lack of color, a number of people have commented that it wasn’t clear that a change was possible. It is something that we will continue to look at and refine. Please let me know if clicking the icon does allow for a change.

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Yes, clicking the check mark does allow the change to be saved.

Not very intuitive, considering there are no popup messages when hovering your cursor over the icons and the OK and Apply buttons are present, although different color. Seems counter-intuitive actually.

Yes, I understand this is a Beta version of the software. Just pointing out discrepancies.

Thank you following up!

11

Except when the value is a “template string”, as in this case… in other words, here in the OPC Item Path, you are writing a string value that has parameter references, not an expression. While there’s no reason why we can’t allow full expression bindings for any property, we chose not to, fearing it would lead to insanely complex tag setups.

Clarifying this whole situation is a high priority, I definitely recognize that these different editing contexts aren’t clear right now.

12

The fact you got tripped up by this is actually really valuable. We just reworked this UI before the public beta, and clearly it’s causing some confusion.

There are a few things in regards to the contents of this thread that I’ll note we’re aware of:

  1. Binding to parameters, either directly or as part of a string, is not very self-explanatory. As I just wrote in reply to Phil, we’ll try to improve this soon.
  2. The whole “internal apply” vs. “overall apply” is clearly confusing. Tooltips or buttons with words could help, or maybe we have to do something a bit more drastic.
  3. In regards to deletion of data types- Ignition 7 allowed this, but with a warning/confirmation “Instances depend on this type, are you sure…”. We definitely need to add this back in
  4. One of our top priorities for the tag editor is to add back in full UDT structure editing, into the dialog. Originally in 8 we decided that all structure editing should be done in the tag tree- adding a member would be just like adding a tag to a folder. The tag editor would only edit a single tag/member at a time. However, as we used it, we felt it was too hard to mentally keep track of the scope of your data type, and decided we needed to bring the tree back into the editor. We’re half way there on that…

That’s for all of the feedback.

1 Like
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A small thing on the UDT structure tree in Tag editor. Clicking around is a little strange. To select a member, you have to click on the member name/tag symbol. This highlights the whole row. This would intuitively give the perception that we should be able to select that member by clicking anywhere on that row.

Another good thing would be to change the properties window based on the member that is currently selected/highlighted. Currently, a single click on a member leaves the properties pane pointing at the previously selected member. This has caught me out before where it looks like a certain member is highlighted but you’d be editing something else.

I hope that sort of makes sense. It’s a small thing.

Most of the other issues I’ve found are already mentioned in this post and seem to have solutions.

Have to say. Tags in 8 are different, but wonderful! It’s brilliant to see the whole tag configuration in one view rather than having to click “security”, “alarming” “meta” …etc. :clap:

14

Thanks for the feedback. We should be rolling out some fundamental updates to the tag editor this week, which mostly revolve around the tree, but also fixing a handful of annoying issues around creating tags.

2 Likes
15

I found there is no way to specify the data type when creating UDT parameters. When I export the tag to XML, I see that they are all being created as strings. I want an integer, but export shows it is a string If I make a parameter with a value of ‘1’, the live value shows ‘1.0’

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Hi
Please inform if it is possible to use UDT in current versions (i cant do it on Ignition Platform 8.0.0-beta0 (b2018122502)), if no - pls advise when this is planing to solve

Thanks

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PS: it looks better after restarting PC

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All the tickets associated with this post have been merged.

If you see any additional issues, please feel free to open a new post.