Is there a way to make the Unilogic software interface closer to the Visilogic one?

[C_R_PLC]

I've recently been teaching myself Unilogic after using Visilogic for about a year and the thing that sticks out to me the most is that while Unilogic definitely looks more "modern" the UI is absolutely horrible and wastes so much space. To the point where I'm having issues using the program on a single screen compared to Visilogic's much more condensed and less cluttered style. Is there a theme or setting that I'm missing that could lower the entire UI scale or something along those lines?

[JL_SMB]

Not to talk about the "speed" of the whole thing. You click one item, wait 2 seconds, and the the properties refresh,

[Joe Tauser]

@C_R_PLC 

Specifically, what UI object types are you frustrated with?

For buttons, there is actually a "Vision Style Button" in the Style dropdown that can have a small font jammed into it-

The numerical displays can be made small natively-

If you're frustrated with the Data Table widget and the inability to set text size I'm with you.  Maybe post some screenshots with commentary.

 

@JL_SMB

On 6/21/2019 at 2:23 AM, JL_SMB said:

Not to talk about the "speed" of the whole thing. You click one item, wait 2 seconds, and the the properties refresh,

Speed of response totally depends on your application and how many objects you have on the screen.  And your Ladder code.  And any and all communication protocols and objects you have defined.  I'd be interested for you to post your code and see what's under the hood that is producing a two second response.

If I may get on my soapbox, the general demand from the user base is everyone wants the PLC to do all sorts of Internet-y and Cell Phone-y things, like IoT and send me a text and serve up my files and show me a pdf and hook up to a camera and serve up webpages and I want to see the screens on my phone and connect to my database and .....

PLCs were never designed to do all these things.  Computers are.  To get the functionality everyone wants that UniStream delivers they had to separate the PLC engine from the computer (the front panel) and the result is two separate CPUs. 

I honestly don't know how UniStream compares with other PLC brands on this topic.  The only one I've had recent experience with is an AB CompactLogix talking to a PanelView Plus.  The PanelView Plus has nowhere near the functionality of the UniStream and a 10" unit was $6,000 USD.  

My general position is if you've got a complaint, give us a lot more detail on your application so that we may either agree with you or point out what you're doing wrong that's causing a problem.

Joe T.

 

 

[JL_SMB]

I started a new project just to be sure, just four numeric boxes, nothing else. When I cycling click over them the properties refresh after more than a second, the same as if I was with a full project with lots of screens, code, etc.. Anyways it's not an issue anymore, you get used to it, but it's a little bit annoying when you modify a lot of items as you can not set the same property at once (that would be fine).

I must say that I do like the software and the hardware, but I suppose there are still some thing that can be improved.

Sample_SMB.ulpr

[C_R_PLC]

On 6/23/2019 at 3:22 PM, Joe Tauser said:

Specifically, what UI object types are you frustrated with?

It's mainly just the overall amount of empty space on the Unilogic version, I'm referring more to the functional UI than anything that goes onto the HMI.

For a point of comparison below is my screen on the Unilogic progam vs the Visilogic program. Note how many more rungs I can see, how much more information is easily reached without scrolling, etc...





Everything is just much more spread out and there's so much blank space that isn't showing anything useful on the Unilogic UI.

[Ausman]

My comment on this "empty space" and "big icons/buttons/selection_methods" is that it seems to have become the "standard" for anything of late, as stuff has been tailored to be useable on smartphones.  Anyone who uses a real computer has had this issue thrust on them for no really good reason, having to put up with all sorts of oversized junk thrown at them.  The W10 start system is a classic example of this.....Stuff that occupies heaps of the screen if you let it.  The "one size fits all" thinking that is completely flawed.

Even though I don't use Unilogic, I am on board a fair bit with this comment as the screenshots clearly show that it has succumbed to the same type of thinking, when in fact it shouldn't at all.

cheers,

Aus

[Flex727]

My biggest problem is the window with the ladder. As you can see above, you can fit at least 3x the number of rungs in the same vertical space in VisiLogic. This necessitates much scrolling, but if you try to scroll with the mouse wheel, it scrolls so slowly it feels like the mouse wheel either isn't working or is only registering at random intervals.

[Flex727]

Regarding the HMI, in VisiLogic I can hover the mouse over HMI elements and get a lot of information (though not always enough). In UniLogic, in order to see anything you must click on the element and then the properties window is so cluttered that it takes quite awhile to discern what I need to know.

[Ausman]

52 minutes ago, Flex727 said:

This necessitates much scrolling, but if you try to scroll with the mouse wheel, it scrolls so slowly it feels like the mouse wheel either isn't working or is only registering at random intervals.

I had this issue recently in using another program, and after many hours hunting and hair tearing I finally found the solution.  It was that the program would only run the mouse correctly if the puter was a single core system.  The program had some sort of innate error (using old definitions that had somehow been missed during development??) such that it would NOT work the mouse correctly on anything running multi cores.

Given that the creators are pretty sharp, I don't think this will be the case, but it would be worth trying the following to see if the behaviour changes:

Run msconfig and go to the boot tab.  Select Advanced options and tick the Number of processors box and set it at 1.  Do all the OK/Apply backouts and restart.

Try it out, checking that the system is indeed only running as a single core.   Don't forget to set it back once you are finished!  When you again go to msconfig you'll find things look a little different so choose correctly according to what sort of system you have...and what it was set at previously...which should have been the total no. of cores possible anyway.

cheers, Aus