RSLogix 5000 Tips and Tricks: Part 1

In this lab we will examine some tips and tricks in RSLogix5000. Some of these are
brand new. Others have been around a while, but have been virtually unknown by the
masses. Any RSLogix5000 user will realize productivity gains by using these tips
and tricks.

Key Topics Covered in this Lab: Commented [JC1]: A couple more items I thought of …

1. Printing. There is a lot of flexibility with printing that I’ve

 Tag filters discovered most users are completely unaware of. It is so
context-sensitive that it is difficult for the user to grasp.
 Viewing routines: split window vs. new window We’re providing a simplified interface in v13 but the context
 Critical keyboard shortcuts sensitive printing will still remain in tact. Let me know if you’d
like to discuss this more.
2. The String Browser. It is available from the Data Monitor
for a String tag. I can elaborate if you want but you might
already cover it in one of your existing labs. It’s a pretty slick
Tag Filters little browser.

Even though these have been around for a while, many are not familiar with tag filters.

1. Double click the “Tips_and_Tricks.acd” file in the HOT2003 folder on your

desktop, close the Tip of the Day.

2. Press the Alt key, which will highlight “File” in the 5000 main menu.

3. Use the Right Arrow key over to Communications and press the Down Arrow.

4. Who Active is selected, because it is at the top of the list. Press enter to bring up
the Who Active window.

5. Down Arrow to the AB_KTC driver and press the Right Arrow to expand it.

6. Down Arrow to the CNB at node 6, press the Right Arrow to expand it.

7. Continue using those arrows until you have selected the controller in slot 1 of
your 10 slot ControlLogix chassis.

8. Use the Tab key to tab over to the Download button, and press enter.

9. Press enter at the Download dialog box in order to download. As with any dialog,
the Tab key works here to move from button to button.

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10. Put the controller into RUN (you don’t need the mouse, you can use Alttype the
letter “C”type the letter “R”Enter).

11. At this point, you could right click on Controller tags and click on “Monitor
Tags” in order to monitor the tags. But did you know there is a Right Mouse Click
Equivalent key on most keyboards nowadays? On the right hand side of the
keyboard, find the long SHIFT key. Directly underneath it are two keys. One is
the Ctrl key, the other has a pointer and a menu on it. That key is the Right Mouse
Click Equivalent. This key works great with RSLogix5000. It works just about
anywhere in most software where a Right Mouse Click is required. If your
keyboard doesn’t have this key, Shift+F10 does the same thing. You should still
have “Controller tips_and_tricks” selected in the Controller Organizer. Arrow
down to Controller Tagspress the Right Mouse Click Equivalent keyarrow
down to Monitor Tagspress Enter. Notice, no mouse was needed for any of
these steps. However, the intent of this lab is to minimize use of the mouse,
not to eliminate it completely!

From here on out, whenever the instructions say “right click,” that means with the mouse,
OR with the special right click key, OR with Shift+F10.

12. Notice that there are four timers in the Controller tags (not too easy to find, are
they?). We want to see how the values of these timers relate to each other. Expand
each of the timers so that you can see their accumulated values. Using this method
of expanding the tags, you wouldn’t be able to see all the pertinent tags at one
time. If only 5000 could give that nice list that RSLogix5 and 500 gives when you
look at a Timer Data File. Collapse the timers so that you see all the controller
tags.

13. Click on the “Show:” dropdown in the top middle of the tags screen:

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14. Using another neat RSLogix 5000 trick, hit the “t” on your keyboard. This will
take you to the “t’s” in the list. This trick works in most places in Windows
(Explorer, “Select Data Type” as you are creating a new tag, etc)

15. Since “tank” is the first “t” in the list, hit “t” again, you are taken directly to
“Timer.” Hit enter. The window now looks like:

16. The display for arrays is pretty good, too. Select Controller Scoped DINTs and
expand dint_array:

17. Notice that there are 8 columns. The number of columns can be changed. Click on
ToolsOptionsTag Display.

18. Set Number of Columns to 12.

19. Select “Space Evenly.”

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20. Click OK. The display is very readable, isn’t it?

21. The above demonstrated feature is called the “Value Only Display Mode.” It is
available for Timers, Counters, Strings and Arrays of type BOOL, SINT, INT and
DINT. Under “Show:”, select type “tank,” our UDT. The window looks like this:

So, with UDT’s, you would still need to expand each tag to see its members.

There is another way to get to the screens for monitoring just a certain type of tag.
Currently, only the tanks are being monitored. Let’s see another way to go back and
monitor the DINTs again.

22. Click on the word “Predefined” (not the “+” sign) at the “Predefined” folder
under Data Types, and expand it by using the Right Arrow key.

23. Use the Down Arrow to get to the DINT data type and use the Right Click
Equivalent button on the DINT data type:

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24. Use the Down Arrow to get to Monitor Tags and press the Enter key. Using the
Data Types tree is just another way to get to the same data monitor screen, but it
automatically sets the “Show” filter to the data type selected in the Controller
Organizer.

25. Go offline (so we’ll be able to modify a UDT).

26. Go back to monitoring the tanks instead of the DINTs.

27. Expand first_tank. Notice that there is data in its members.

28. Right click on “tank” under “User-Defined,” which is under “Data Types” in the
Controller Organizer window:

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29. After you right click on “tank”, click on Properties.

30. Go to the blank line (the last line) under “Members:” and add a member named
“mixture_type” of the DINT data type (always try to use DINTs instead of INTs
or SINTs, for performance reasons).

31. Click OK at the bottom of the screen to close the window. Our UDT now has 5
members instead of four.

32. Monitor the tag “first_tank” and expand it so you can see all its members. Notice
that all the data is still there.

Big deal, you say? You would expect the data to still be there? Yes, you would, but
that is not the way it has been in the past. Previous to V12, you would get some of the
warnings below. If you didn’t get the second warning, your data may or may not get
set back to zero:

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 Losing data when modifying the structure of a UDT is no longer a concern in V12.

33. Go back online, download your newly modified program.

34. So, now you’ve been writing logic til all hours of the night and you can’t
remember which tags you’ve already used in the program and which you haven’t.
Click on “Show:” again and scroll all the way up to the top. In the list directly
under “Show All” is “Unused.” Double click “Unused” to see a list of all the
Controller Scoped unused tags. Now go over to the “Scope:” drop down box and
select “Main Program.” Notice that now it shows the Program Scoped tags,
remembering that all you wanted to see were the Unused tags.

35. RSLogix 5000 also gives you a way to view multiple Tag Editor/Data Monitor
windows simultaneously. Only one window per scope but more than two scopes.
For instance I can have a window showing controller tags, another showing
Program1 tags, another showing Program2 tags, etc. Again, click
ToolsOptionsTag Display.

36. Select the box for “Create New Window When Changing Tag Collection.”

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37. Click OK.

38. You should still be looking at your Program Scoped tags. Select “Show All.”

39. Now, change the scope to Controller Scoped tags. If your tag monitor window is
maximized, you might not see it, but your Program Scoped tags window is still on
the screen. If you cannot see both, then un-maximize the tag monitor window and
arrange your tag monitor windows as shown below:

The “Create New Window when Changing the Tag Collection” checkbox gives you a
new window when you change scope, but not when you “Show:” a different Type of
tag. In other words, if you are showing DINTs and you change to showing TIMERs,

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 you will not get a new window for both DINTs and TIMERs (based on different
collections or scopes of tags…nothing else)

Viewing Routines
Remember when we wanted to look at the behavior of different timers in the tag
monitor screen? Let’s say we wanted to see how those timers were interacting in the
actual ladder logic code. Only problem is, those timers are no where near adjacent in
the logic.

40. Double click on the Main Routine and maximize.

41. Move your cursor to the top of the ladder routine so that the cursor looks as
shown below (Can also activate using the Window -> Split menu item):

42. Hold down the left mouse button and move the mouse toward the bottom of the
screen.

43. In the lower ladder window, move down to the bottom rungs of the logic. We can
now see the operation of timers at both the top of the ladder and the bottom of the
ladder, even though there might be hundreds of rungs in between.

Cannot remove split using menu.

Must select split getting the split
cursor and drag it either all the
way up or down, either way it
doesn’t matter.

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44. That’s nice, but what about viewing two different routines at the same time?
Select WindowNew Window.

45. If your ladder logic is maximized, un-maximize it. You can now see that there are
two separate windows of ladder logic opened up. Select one of these windows and
click on another routine, such as cam_modifier. Now both routines can be
arranged any way you want so that they can be clearly viewed:

46. While we are viewing these routines, let’s look at a useful mouse shortcut. Right
click on any routine tab, and you get a whole list of things you can do. This is just
another way to get to these functions.

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Critical Keyboard Shortcuts
47. Click on HelpContentsContents tab double click Navigating the
Software double click Navigating the Software againUse the Keyboard. This
shows you all the keystrokes that can be used without a mouse. We’ll go through
only the most important of these. Programmers who use the software every day
don’t generally like to use a pointing device. They like to use the keyboard as
much as possible.

48. After you take a look at the “Use the Keyboard” window, minimize it for later
reference, or close it altogether.

49. Click on the different headings in the menu bar. Notice that keyboard shortcuts
are listed along with the selections:

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 Version 13 will also show the corresponding button icons to the left of the menu item.

50. Click on the routine window that has two tabs at the bottom of it. Double click on
the CLEAR_CAM routine on the left hand side in the controller organizer. Now
there are (3) tabs in the selected routine window. Press Ctrl+Page Down and
Ctrl+Page Up. These will take you through the tabs, in this case the routines, at
the bottom of the routine window.

51. Click on the Controller Properties button, as shown below:

That is a neat little button in and of itself. But why is it really needed? Is it really that
much better than right clicking on the Controller and selecting Properties? Is it really
that much better than clicking on Online/Offline and selecting Controller Properties?
The reason that this button exists is that some users expect to be able to double click
on the Controller and have the Properties page come up. But, the Controller is a
folder, so double clicking it either expands or contracts the folder, which is standard
Windows operation. So, this button is just another easy way to get to the Controller
Properties.

52. Now that Controller Properties is opened, use Ctrl+Page Down and Ctrl+Page
Up to navigate through all those tabs. Here you really see the usefulness of these
shortcut keys. Ctrl+Page Down and Ctrl+Page Up take you through a set of tabs
anywhere tabs appear in the RSLogix 5000 user interface (or most Windows
applications for that matter).

53. There should still be at least (3) RSLogix5000 views opened: the Controller
Properties and (2) routine windows. Press Ctrl+Tab and Shift+Ctrl+Tab to
scroll through the different windows. This is similar to the Alt+Tab feature of
Windows.

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54. Go offline.

55. Click on your ladder routine.

56. Press Alt+Insert. This brings up the following dialog box:

57. Notice that the Type Ahead feature works in this box, as it does when you type
tag names, etc. Type Ahead also works in the Tag Browser, where it is perhaps
the most useful.

58. Type an “x” and you are taken to the Booleans, many of which start with “x.”

59. Clear the “x” and type a “t” and you are taken to the timer elements. You can
keep typing to get to a specific element. Example, ‘tof’ will select the Timer Off
Delay element.

60. Select a ladder element and click OK to place it in the selected location.

61. Click on the CLEAR_CAM structured text routine.

62. Type Alt+Insert. Because we are now on a structured text routine, the window
that appears is for structured text elements. Type a “p” to go straight to the PID.
Alt+Insert will give you the available elements for whatever language you are
on. This works for all (4) languages. If you go to the main menuEditAdd
Element, you get the same result.

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63. Go back online by uploading the program. We don’t want to save any changes
since we were last online.

64. Monitor rungs 5 & 6 of the main routine.

65. Monitor the controller scoped Booleans, but don’t right click on Controller Tags
in order to get there. Use the Data Types folder as described earlier (Data Types
folderPredefinedright click on BOOLMonitor Tags).

66. Adjust the windows so you can see both the logic and the tag monitor:

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 Why are there 12 columns for these Booleans? Because we set up 12 columns in
order to look at our array of DINTs. We won’t change this again now, but how could
we change it? Previosly, we went through the main menu, but we could right click on
the Main Routine tab at the bottom of our logic, then select Options, then Tag
Display. Alternately, the user can right click anywhere in the Tag Editor/Data
Monitor grid and select the Options menu item. The advantage here is it
automatically takes you the Tag Display category.

67. Now that you can see the logic and the tag editor, click on the tag name,
“time_to_run” and press Cntl+T. This will toggle the bit from 0 to 1.

68. Press Cntl+T again to toggle back to a zero.

69. Now click on the bit in the ladder logic.

70. Press Cntl+T a few times to see that the bit will also toggle from the ladder logic.
Cntl+T works in ladder and FBD.

71. Click on “6” of Rung #6.

72. Press Cntl+D to edit the rung comment.

73. Type something clever like “How this rung works…”

74. You can’t enter the comment by pressing the Enter key because that will just take
you to the next row of the comment. You could click on the green checkmark, but
we are trying to avoid using the mouse, which really just slows you down. Press
Ctrl+Enter to enter the comment. Actually, pressing Enter, Enter, Enter (3 times)
gives the same result.

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75. Ctrl+Enter also works to give descriptions to operands. Click on the
“time_to_run” bit. After this program had been running a while, it was decided
that more description had to be added to this bit.

76. Press Cntl+D, but this time to edit the operand description.

77. Add the following description, using Ctrl+Enter to enter the description. In
general, Ctrl+Enter can be used in a number of places, to apply modifications.

Ctrl+D and Ctrl+Enter

often work together

78. Click on the [End] rung.

79. Type the following line of logic:

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80. Press the Enter key.

81. These tags are yet to be defined. We want to define them as Controller Scoped,
Boolean, Base tags. Rather than right clicking on each of them, use the “”
arrow key to move on top of “some_other_tag.”

82. Once “some_other_tag” is highlighted, press Ctrl+W to launch the new tag
dialog.

83. Press the Enter key.

84. Use the “” arrow key to move to the output tag and go through the same drill.
Notice, the mouse was not needed to create new tags using Ctrl+W.

You do not have to be on an undefined tag to use Ctrl+W. You can use it from just
about anywhere.

85. Want to hide the Controller Organizer to see a lot more code? You do not need to
manually move windows. You can hide it using View in the main menu. Better
yet, try typing Alt+0 (zero, not the letter “O”). Press Alt+0 a few times, you see
that you can toggle the Controller Organizer on and off.

86. For this next set of keystrokes, make sure you can see the “Errors-Search-Watch”
pane below your routines:

87. Press Alt+1, then Alt+2, then Alt+3 and you can see how you can scroll through
those three tabs. Press any one of those keystrokes twice in a row and you’ll turn

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 that pane off. Make sure you are on the “Search Results” tab by pressing Alt+2.
Press Alt+2 again to turn it off, then Alt+2 yet again to turn it back on.

Note the Watch Pane that Alt+3 gives you. This is basically a tag monitor beneath the
routine. It was added specifically for monitoring the tags of Structured Text routines, so it
was new in V11. However, it also provides tag monitoring in any language, not just STs.
This Pane will grow in functionality in future releases, e.g. Custom Data Monitor.

There are lots and lots of Tips and Tricks to use in RSLogix 5000. This was just Part 1!

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