Created Date: November 19,2007

Created by: franji1

We changed Data Views from being MDI children (like Ladder, Stage, Doc Editor) to being "Dockable/Floatable " views. There will always be screen realestate issues when dealing with 15+ Data Views at the same time, no matter the behavior (only so many pixels on a screen).

We would like (some day) to make ANY view to be either an MDI view OR dockable/floatable. However, this will not happen in Rel 6, but probably/hopefully in Rel 7.

You can place your data views wherever you like, not just the left side. Grab the title bar of the specific data view and float it outside, or dock it next to another view, or below another view, or dock it to the bottom/top of the frame, or on the right edge.

You can group them (with tabs on the bottom of each group) and also have multiple groups, then hide, show, or even float a group.

Believe it or not, we did this so that you can have a LOT of data views open, and make it easy to navigate through them all. 15 Windows cascaded or tiled in the MDI area is not easily managed.

1. grouping Data Views,

2. docking groups onto the top, buttom, left, and/or right,

3. docking them adjacent to other groups

4. floating the groups outside of the DirectSOFT window

While this is different than the MDI behavior, these actually gives you more options for managing 15+ data views.

Like I mentioned earlier, the goal is to let you configure any view to be displayed any way, but this is not easy to do.

I recommend experimenting with Data Views offline just to try different layouts and the new UI for dockable/floatable views.

Created Date: November 19,2007

Created by: franji1

Don't beat yourself up over this - this type of UI feature is NOT common. I have seen it in large software suites (like Microsoft Visual Studio, which we use to develop DirectSOFT), but it is NOT in any type of "common " windows applications, so it takes education, something we have not done a great job with :-\ (sorry!)

What's cool is if you have multiple monitor support, then you can drag these outside of DirectSOFT window and organize them on a 2nd monitor. I realize most do not have a 2nd monitor, but with Ethernet connectivity being more and more "standard " with PLCs, being able to monitor your PLC from your office is becoming more and more common.

Created Date: November 19,2007

Created by: NitraMA01

Hi,

My problem is a interface problem. I would like to know if we can have the 3 standards icons (reduce, full screen, close) on the upper right corner of a "dataView " windows. Before using the directsoft5 we use the directsoft4 build 25 and the "dataview " windows has the 3 standards icons.

Another things about the interface of DirectSoft5. When I have a lot of Dataview open (15 windows), and it dock and hide on the left side of me screen, we can't scroll and select the "dataview " we want because it's outside of the range of the screen. A little arrow that give us the opportunity to scroll must be add.

This is ideas for the next update, and for now, tell my how can I see all my 15 dataview windows without to have to open it each time I want to see my dataviews.