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the cross reference list has been a helpful tool in Codesys 3, however a number of times (especially when doing on-site commissioning and monitoring) it behaves in a really awkward way by default. In particular I have two separate issues with it and would welcome suggestions about how to change this behavior, or suggest a possible enhancement to Codesys 3 developers in the near future, that would make it even better.
Both issues arise from the same source, the "Scope" selection of the cross reference list (as selected from the drop-down list named "Scope" in the cross reference list window).
1.) Whenever selecting a variable in an opened POU, the cross reference list automatically accepts this variable in the "Name" field and refreshes the resulting list for the selected variable. This is helpful and working properly. However, whenever this occurs the "Scope" also changes to the opened POU. Even if "--all--" or "--active application--" was selected prior to this. This is useful sometimes, but whenever we're dealing with global variables or variables that appear across a number of POUs it is really counter-productive. So far I have found no way to (at least temporarily) lock the "Scope" to "--all--" or "--active application--". I hope you can imagine how extremely helpful this simple option would be for commissioning purposes.
2.) When logged in in on-line mode, right-click on a POU and select "Edit object (offline)", now select any variable in this POU and double click/select any entry from the cross-reference list.
Whenever you do this, the editor automatically opens a new window containing the on-line view of this POU and shows the occurrence of this variable - this happens even for the already-shown-in-offline-edit-POU. If you think about why you opened the POU in offline-edit mode (probably in 99% of the cases to fix something on site) and why you accessed the variable from within this off-line edit mode while connected on-line (probably in 99% to find and change where its being used or written to) then you really need a way to use the cross reference within the window of the offline-edit POU and NOT in a newly opened on-line view of the same POU.
Don't get me wrong, these two issues are not something you deal with when you're "normally" writing your program in the office, but when you're on site and commissioning or fixing machinery that must not be stopped, they're really frustrating if there is no workaround or an option to change in Codesys 3. For example I have a number of coworkers (me included) that come from a longtime experience working with (among other) Omron PLCs where the cross-reference list has been a time/situation-saver for at least the last 10+ years. Again, don't get me wrong, the change from Codesys 2 to Codesys 3 has been enormous, but unfortunately the above mentioned two issues remain something we continuously loose time with when on-site.
If anyone has a suggestion about these, please let me know, otherwise I humbly suggest the Codesys 3 developers to take a look at the Cross reference list functionality.
A possible suggested solution for 1.) would be button to "lock" the selection for the "Scope" selector, right next to it. A possible suggested solution for 2.) would be not to open another on-line window of the already opened offline-edit POU or to at least make it optional.
Cheers
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Hello,
the cross reference list has been a helpful tool in Codesys 3, however a number of times (especially when doing on-site commissioning and monitoring) it behaves in a really awkward way by default. In particular I have two separate issues with it and would welcome suggestions about how to change this behavior, or suggest a possible enhancement to Codesys 3 developers in the near future, that would make it even better.
Both issues arise from the same source, the "Scope" selection of the cross reference list (as selected from the drop-down list named "Scope" in the cross reference list window).
1.) Whenever selecting a variable in an opened POU, the cross reference list automatically accepts this variable in the "Name" field and refreshes the resulting list for the selected variable. This is helpful and working properly. However, whenever this occurs the "Scope" also changes to the opened POU. Even if "--all--" or "--active application--" was selected prior to this. This is useful sometimes, but whenever we're dealing with global variables or variables that appear across a number of POUs it is really counter-productive. So far I have found no way to (at least temporarily) lock the "Scope" to "--all--" or "--active application--". I hope you can imagine how extremely helpful this simple option would be for commissioning purposes.
2.) When logged in in on-line mode, right-click on a POU and select "Edit object (offline)", now select any variable in this POU and double click/select any entry from the cross-reference list.
Whenever you do this, the editor automatically opens a new window containing the on-line view of this POU and shows the occurrence of this variable - this happens even for the already-shown-in-offline-edit-POU. If you think about why you opened the POU in offline-edit mode (probably in 99% of the cases to fix something on site) and why you accessed the variable from within this off-line edit mode while connected on-line (probably in 99% to find and change where its being used or written to) then you really need a way to use the cross reference within the window of the offline-edit POU and NOT in a newly opened on-line view of the same POU.
Don't get me wrong, these two issues are not something you deal with when you're "normally" writing your program in the office, but when you're on site and commissioning or fixing machinery that must not be stopped, they're really frustrating if there is no workaround or an option to change in Codesys 3. For example I have a number of coworkers (me included) that come from a longtime experience working with (among other) Omron PLCs where the cross-reference list has been a time/situation-saver for at least the last 10+ years. Again, don't get me wrong, the change from Codesys 2 to Codesys 3 has been enormous, but unfortunately the above mentioned two issues remain something we continuously loose time with when on-site.
If anyone has a suggestion about these, please let me know, otherwise I humbly suggest the Codesys 3 developers to take a look at the Cross reference list functionality.
A possible suggested solution for 1.) would be button to "lock" the selection for the "Scope" selector, right next to it. A possible suggested solution for 2.) would be not to open another on-line window of the already opened offline-edit POU or to at least make it optional.
Cheers