UniLogic feature request

[Jeff164]

I'm new to UniLogic - have been working with VisiLogic for a few years now but for this project (wanting features as well as better hardware avaiability) I went with Unistream product. So this is my first Unistream / UniLogic experience.   

One thing that I belive woudl be valueable would be if we had the option of making the the Toolbox  optionally be a ribbon with drop down menus across the top of the screen instead of a block off to the side thats in the way all the time.   

When I'm at my desk and have a nice 27" monitor, its no big deal.   Often I'm working remotely, either from home or a hotel room and I only have the small screen of my notebook PC.    During these times the toolbox is somewhat annoying.  I have learned how to Auto-Hide the Solution Explorer and the Properties Window.  Properties Window could be a pop-up that auto hides until you click on an element to edit it, as an alternate to the or the auto-hide / dockable function that't there now.  

Having the Tookbox be a ribbon with drop-downs would make working from a smaller screen much easier - just my thoughts after fiddling with this for a couple of weeks.  This feature could be selectable,  IE for those in-office days where we have lots of electroinc real estate it could be the way it is.   Much of this depends on the aspect ratio of your project PLC and of your PC screen, but it would be nice to have the option. 

thanks !

 

Jeff

[AlexUT]

Hi,

It is recommended to review Help in deep before you start and before "inventing" new requirements.

Help include a lot of explanations:

Did you?:)

B.R.

 

[Jeff164]

Thanks - I do appreciate the reply

Yes, in fact I had looked at the help menu and I have already been moving the "tiles" or boxes around, and as well I have been using the "auto-hide" feature.   

Auto hide is usefull when working from the smaller notebook computer.   The Toolbox however does not seem to have the autohide function that most of the other windows have.   I can move it around, resize it etc, but I cannot make it hide unless I'm missing somthing.   The reset to default button is something I have had already had to to use several times to recover functinoality after I seem to have "broken" it.   

From what I can see:  The Toolbox can be repositioned and resized - however the relative layout of the components within the toolbox and selection of same is still confied to the its current format.   IE they are arranged in a vertical stack, with a navigational tree that can be expanded and collapsed.   The expand all / collapse all icons are usefull, but From my perspective if the toolbox could be displayed as an optional ribbon IE - horizontal arrangment (keyword optional here) it would be helpful when using a smaller computer screen.   This ribbon could then have the major element groupings staged horizontally instead of the vertical stack as shown here.   Some consolidation of groupings; IE one group for COM, one group for Data Tables. etc.  could possibly reduce the number of groups needed.  

Please note:  I did not think I was saying or implying that this was a 'requirement'; even after rereading my original post - quite honestly I'm not sure why you read it that way.   I saw it as just a request for an alternate functinoality.   As I see it this forum is created and sponsored by the manufacter and there are MFG reps as moderators, so it seemed  a logical place to post such a request.   

My apoologies if this is not the case.    If there are alternate / more proper channels to interact with the MFG reps please advise.   

I undertand that perhaps there may be some techincal limitations to the GUI and how it interacts with the source code that drives Unilogic; that might make it difficult to implement this and to have have multiple formats to be able to display and interact with the software.     

thanks again for your consideration.  

Jeff

 

[Ausman]

Jeff, it is very easy to miss how to do something on any program with complex abilities.  I still  find things in Visilogic that have been there for ages but I now need or accidentally discover.   Unitronics generally acts on suggestions, and if possible they get implemented, some quite quickly.  That's the beauty of them being a smaller company.  I personally don't think you've posted incorrectly, but this isn't a slight on Alex.

3 hours ago, Jeff164 said:

there are MFG reps as moderators

For the forum this should likely read "there are a few  MFG reps".  Some of the members volunteer as moderators, like myself, Flex & Kratmel to name but a few.  The likes of Joe T and Simon also volunteer mods, but are also sellers of the product, so their insights often show the benefits of considerable working with the units.  The members make up the rest of the knowledge base, which often shows how extensive it is through to and fro advice mostly reaching a good conclusion for all.

cheers, Aus

[Jeff164]

Thanks Aus  

For the record I didn't mean my reply to be percived as a slight against @AlexUT and my apologies if it came off that way.   

I work for a small OEM mfg & we do all our PLC work in house.   Our systems change too much for us to outsource this work; as we do a high degree of customization.  I'm currently dealing with 4 differnet PLC platforms (actually 5 when you consider that VisiLogic and UniLogic are different).   I also get involed in a fair amount of hands on field work  so it keeps me a bit scattered. 

I'm really liking some of the features that UniLogic offers and it seems to be a very capable platform.   I hope to exploit some of these features further in the future if I can steer more jobs into this package.  

 

[Gargamel]

I could add some things to the feature request.

1) UNDO! Needs to work on the HMI/Webserver pages.
2) A way to remove images set on a button (or anyother object)
3) Allow more than 1 instance of UniLogic.