ADC Community_02 (Automationdirect.com) asked a question.
With Data View you can easily monitor or change any data element in your entire ladder program while the program is running. There are several ways to use features and options that make Data View a more effective tool in troubleshooting & monitor I/O and tag values.
Let’s say we want to monitor and control a boolean control bit name Motor Start– well, just click on Data View, type in Motor Start, or right click on the contact and select “Monitor in Data View”.
Monitoring tags can be done on a single instruction of you can highlight several instructions or rungs to create custom data view windows.
The Motor Start bit is currently off. To change the bit to the on state, click on the Edit checkbox & then click on the Send Edits icon.
Another option is to enable “Auto Edits” that will automatically send edits once an edit to a tag value is made. This eliminates the need to select Send Edits. “Auto Edits” can be enabled under Tools -> Options -> Data View -> then check the box for “Enable Auto Edits”.
To graph a tag value, just drag and drop the tag directly from the Data View window into the Graph View.
Another way to improve your effectiveness is to use multiple Data View tabs to organize your tags into groups that can easily be referenced. Any changes are saved to the project so no need to worry about losing any of your Data View set up.
No need to convert values in ladder to view them in a different way (such as Decimal, Hex, Binary, etc.). Just select the representation you want in the View As column and the value(s) are automatically displayed in the representation selected (see the example below).
Example: If you have an integer value you can easily see the binary pattern of that value. The example below shows the binary pattern of a decimal value of 1489.
Add consecutive tags to Data View quickly by selecting the first tag and then hold Ctrl key down and press the Enter key for as many consecutive tags you would like entered. Note: consecutive tags are in alpha-numeric order.
For more details and other options available please reference Data View help topic P074.
Productivity PROtips: Using Dataview Effectively
In no particular order, and no particular order of importance, and not meant to detract from the value of the post:
easily monitor or change any data element in your entire ladder program while the program is running
However, your changes may be overwritten by your running code.
Most of what follows is my opinion, and may not present a problem for others.
Another option is to enable “Auto Edits” that will automatically send edits once an edit to a tag value is made
I am not a fan of this mode while online with production equipment.
Be careful when using this mode!
Sort by column/clicking on column header can be disconcerting if you accidentally click on the column header. Items move, as they are sorted differently.
Can we have an option to disable this sorting mechanism?
Click/dragging in dataview will move and can delete entries.
Can we have an option to disable this click/drag mechanism?
Dataview does not allow different "Edit" field values for the same tag. Dataview used to support this mode.
Can we return this capability?
Eg. I want the tag InputMode to be present on three successive rows.
I want the first row "Edit" field to be 1, the second to be 2 and the third to be 3, then send whatever row to change the mode. As it is now, I cannot do this.
It may be the that the architecture for supporting "AutoEdits" does not allow this. ??
Ok, enough post hijacking. I'll stop.