Shawn details how Studio 5000 Logix Designer’s look and feel changed from version 30 to version 31 in today’s episode of #AutomationTechTalk Lunchtime Edition livestream: Watch Automation Tech Talk on The Automation Blog:



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Read the transcript on The Automation Blog: (automatically generated)

Shawn Tierney (Host): Happy Tuesday, everybody, and happy, September. It is September now, the second, and, please let me know if the video or audio is not working, but everything’s looking great. I can actually get the, streaming out over here on the right. And, I was hoping to have a guest come on the show today. We were all set up.

There was actually one that was, rescheduled, and, no guests. Now it could be a problem with StreamYard because I have seen the delay when somebody tries to join as a guest and when they actually show up in my in my web browser. I’ve, like, refreshed a 100 times, so I don’t know what else to do. But in any case, I still have something that I was just working on for my students that I figured we could talk about since the guest is not connected. So and I was really looking forward to having a Julio on to talk about his company because it just sounded really interesting.

But in any case, I don’t see anything in the chat. So let me go ahead and switch over to this view. Now I’ve had many people, actually, I shouldn’t say many people. I had one person I was talking to about two weeks ago, and they said, you know, Shawn, I was taking one of your courses, and I didn’t recognize I didn’t recognize Studio five thousand. I’m like, what do you mean?

He’s like, it looked totally different. And I’m like, well, that’s not good. And so I’m going back, and I’m like, I think I know what happened. So some people work with only new products. Right?

So they’re only using the latest and the greatest version of the software, and I’m like, wow. You know, that that that’s not me. I’ve been using RS logic since beta. Right? And so I’m like, wow.

So some people make it that, you know, look and feel shock when they, when they, use the latest version and then go back a few versions. So I thought, you know, I did an update a lesson. I just rendered it for my students, and I figured we hey. Since we had a new show, again, he could still connect if he wanted to, but I figured, hey. Let’s cover that.

We’ll call this, Studio 5,000 Logix Designer version 30 versus versus 31. And so what I wanna show you here is I actually have version 10. Now to save time, I typically will will often not install one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Right? And so and some of those versions don’t exist.

Right? So in any case, so this is what, Studio 5,000 Logix designer, a k a RS Logix 5,000, if you didn’t know. This is what it looks like, brand new program. This is what it looked like the version 10. 10 is the first version that supported multi, multiple installs or what they call side by side installations where you can install ten and eleven and twelve and thirteen and fifteen and sixteen and seventeen and eighteen and so on.

Before that, you can only install one, kinda like everything else that’s come before it. Like, you can only have and and you guys correct me if I’m wrong, but, typically, you can only have one copy of Microsoft Word installed or one copy of, you know, most any application, Excel or Premiere Pro or whatever you’re using. You can’t have two installed at the same time. It’s kinda annoying, but because Logix is has to be lockstep. In other words, you have version, let’s say, a version 16 in your controller.

You have to have version 16 to program that controller, unless you wanna upgrade the firmware, which why would you wanna do that? It’s long. It’s complicated. No reason to. Right?

And so I like this idea of side by side installations, And, people used to complain a lot when it first came out that it could take 500 megabytes to install a new version because it’s a lot more now. But but with hard drives so big, like a terabyte, two terabytes, three terabytes, you know, what’s the big deal? Right? So in any case, rather have the feature because you only have to install the versions you’re working on. Right?

If you have sixteen, twenty, and, you know, 34, those are the only three versions you need to install. So in any case, here we are. To me, this looks like RS Logix 5,000. Let’s compare it to version 20. Okay.

Well, this is this version 20 is for my course. Okay. If you could see this, they look pretty similar. Okay. Except I got extra routines here, but look at look at the look and feel pretty much the same version 10.

Right? You see there’s extra stuff in there. Some things have been renamed. Okay. If you look at the toolbars, very similar.

I know on the above one, I went, I went and did this, so I didn’t show you that. You can see the path. I don’t know why it’s up there now. It used to be down here. But yeah.

So version 10 and version 20 were looking very, very similar. Right? And so now let me go ahead and migrate this to version 30. And, I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas on all this. Okay.

Version 30. Of course, it can’t be an l one if it’s a version. Notice that’s one thing this the old versions. Right? So let me change because you used to be able to do the version in the controller as two separate steps.

Right? Okay. So see, this will only go up to 63 because it’s version 10. So let’s let’s see what happens. Let’s just try.

We’re just experimenting live on the ear here because we had a, a guest not show up. So let’s see let’s see what happens. And it could crash. That’s okay. It’s just the lunchtime edition of automation tech talk.

If you guys have questions or thoughts or ideas, things you wanna share, please, post them in the comments. Unfortunately, today, because I’m in the classroom working on new lessons for my students, I do have to go and get back to the METTLEDO, the episodes I’m filming. I ran into a little glitch with that, so I gotta do some research. But, in any case also, I was playing with some IO link early this morning over coffee. So it’s gonna go from l 71 from an l one to an l 71.

Sure. That’s great. I get an l 73. You can’t see it’s off the screen here, but I have an L73 my L73 s back here. I was just, had the camera.

I had to pull it over because I had the camera up to it to, you know, the to show the I wanted to show the analog testing the analog and digital out. So in the trainer, as opposed to in the in the, you know, what it would look like in the, classroom. So we get a warning here. Let me switch back. I I know I often forget to do that.

There’s no control room. It’s just me. I’m doing it all. But in any case, so we’ll convert that. So we we just established here so far that version 10 or version 20, they pretty much look almost identical.

Right? So that’s good. That’s good. So if you’re using 10 or 20, you’re feeling pretty good. Again, minor minor differences here and there.

But let’s go ahead. I wanna make sure I open the same one. Okay. Now let’s take a look at version 30. Okay?

Still looking pretty much the same again. These these are two different programs and not the same programs. One big thing you’ll notice here I know this throws some people. I don’t know why. Program tags were renamed parameter and local tags, and it’s much better because now you can use what used to be program tags in other locations in your code, you know, which is great because you can make them parameters, like, in our parameters.

Right? And local tags, of course, would be very much similar to what program tags were. And it’s all good. You know, version I mean, looks similar. Right?

This is 30. This is version 30. Okay. Let’s look at the toolbars. Right?

Everything you know, slight coloring differences, I think. Yeah. Right? So thirty, twenty, and 10, they all look really practically identical. So now let’s compare 30 to 31.

Boom. Oh, well, this is actually 34, but this you you won’t see a difference between thirty one and thirty four. And this is where Rocco did a graphical, refresh with 31. And now look at all these icons. They’re all, like, kinda new looking and fancy versus the old icons.

Again, two different programs. One thing that is different, kind of a major difference is this assets folder. So if you’re in 31 and up, you’re gonna have an assets folder, which that stuff you should just be all here in the main tree. Right? So, yeah, it looks a lot newer.

Right? You can see instead of gray, it’s kind of this dark blue. K. You see that? Get rid of the arrow windows.

I should just close them. But the toolbar is a lot different as well if you look at the toolbar. K. So one thing that gets me is I’ve been going here for well, since the product came out in the late nineties for controller properties. Now it’s over here, and it’s smaller.

I’m getting older. It’s out of the sea yet. So in any case, I I, that’s one thing I don’t like that they did. But, hey. You know, they may have a good reason for it.

Also, these drop downs here are now over here. Look at that. Interesting, Except for, you know, all these lights now move to the left. K. The biggest one gets me is control properties, and the other one is verify project or verify controller.

Verify used to be pretty easy to see. Now it kinda looks like controller properties. It’s like, well, not as not as I don’t think as clear to see as the guy was. But, yeah, if you look at, you know, you get the path toolbar. Used to be up here.

Now it’s down in here. Right? And a lot of things are smaller. But overall, you know, I I was a little struggling for them to say when they said, hey. This looks totally different.

I’m like, does it really? I mean, it looks refreshed, like a Windows 10 to 11 type thing, But I was like, oh, I don’t I don’t know. Yeah. The main program, main routine. You know?

Well, everything has the same names. So in any case, That is, those were my thoughts. What do you guys think? Does it does it, you know, if you’ve only programmed in this, do you think going back to this would be like, wow, different software? Or we’d be like, no.

That just looks like an older version. But, in any case, I wanted to kinda walk through that with you because I’ve had some people, at least definitely one person who said a student of mine said, hey. We only use the new stuff. He didn’t say this, but it turned out that he they only used the new stuff, 31 and up. And he’s like, hey.

I’m like, well, you know, they’re I’m trying to teach people who are using one through 37. And so one through 30 all look the same and then 31 and up. So but that’s what I was just doing now. I was adding more lessons to the courses to kinda show both of them. And so if you’re in my compact, the ControlLogist course, you’ll see those new lessons show up, soon, if not today, tomorrow.

But, also adding new lessons, some new analog lessons, testing them with the trainers here in the office versus the, the trainer I use in the course just to kinda give you, like, a this versus that look. And, you know, of course doing it with the new software as well since, version 31 did not exist when I filmed the course. Right? So in any case, that’s it. That’s all I had, because it was kinda like a last minute replacement.

And, talk about what’s coming out this week. No podcast this week. We will be doing I do plan to be back here tomorrow and Thursday, to do lunchtime. No. I won’t be doing a lunchtime show on Friday.

We have, we’re working on new videos on the METTLATOLEDO, I n d three sixty. I, excited to, excited to work with people like, Software Toolbox and Schneider on some other videos. And, I get some, videos coming out on IO Link that I’ve been working on. Next week’s podcast will be IO Link. Again, with the experts on it, the actual company that’s in charge of marketing it, and, and certified in products and all that.

So, will be that’ll come out next week, and I wanna have some IO content ready for that. So I, spent the weekend building some IO Link demos, and so look forward to, look forward to showing you that. And, with that, I since there’s nothing in the chat, and that gentleman never popped up in my interface here, I’m just gonna call a lunchtime show a little early, thirteen minutes, but I do wanna wish you all good health and happiness. If you have any questions about anything I’m doing on, YouTube, on the blog, or at the school, just reach out to me. There’s content with contact links everywhere.

And, of course, you can contact me on LinkedIn as well. And, I do wanna throw a shout out to anybody who wants to come on the show, or if you’re a vendor or you’re end user, OEM integrator, you wanna come on and and just see us something you learned, please reach out to me. And with that, I wanna wish you all, again, good health and happiness. And until next time, my friends, peace.

If you have any questions about Shawn’s in-person or online courses, please don’t hesitate to setup a time to meet with Shawn via MSTeams, or drop him an email using his contact form here: https://theautomationschool.com/question/

Until next time, Peace ✌️ 

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Shawn M Tierney
Technology Enthusiast & Content Creator

Eliminate commercials and gain access to my weekly full length hands-on, news, and Q&A sessions by becoming a member at The Automation Blog or on YouTube. You'll also find all of my affordable PLC, HMI, and SCADA courses at TheAutomationSchool.com.