Topic: DMD0215

Help File Version: 2.9.4.37

Import Element Documentation

The Import Documentation dialog allows you to import element documentation (Nicknames, Extra Info, and/or Description) in text form into the currently open Do-more Designer project. The format of the data in the import file is discussed below.

 

Note: the preferred method for moving code-blocks and/or programming elements between Do-more Designer projects is to use Cut/Copy/Paste rather than Import/Export. The Cut/Copy/Paste operations have the intelligence required to properly handle incompatibilities in the System Configurations of the source and destination projects.

 

The Import Element Documentation dialog is invoked with the File-> Import-> Element Documentation menu selection.

 

The left side of the dialog is a standard set of Windows File Open prompts allowing the programmer to browse to a folder and select the file, either a Comma Delimited (.csv), or Comma Delimited Text (.txt) file.

 

Import Behavior

The right side of the dialog contains three options for handling duplicate Nicknames:

 

  • Merge (.Project Priority) - For any conflict, keep the element documentation already in the currently open project, ignore the element documentation from the import file.
     

  • Merge (.CSV File Priority) - For any conflict, overwrite the element documentation in the currently open project with the element documentation from the import file.
     

  • Delete Existing - Delete all the element documentation from the currently open project and import all the element documentation from the import file. Note: After the import, only the element documentation from the import file will be in the project.

 

Click Open to start the import process. The documentation import will verify that each entry in the import file is properly formatted. Any resulting error messages are displayed in the Output Window. Any errors must be resolved before the data can be imported.

 

Click Cancel to abort the Import process.

 
Import File format

Each line of the import file consists of the following data items: the Element Type and ID, the element’s Nickname, Extra Info, and Description. Here is an example that would import a discrete point X0 with a Nickname of "Start Pump", Extra Info "Blue 001", and a Description of "This push button starts the pump":

"X0","StartPump","Blue 001","This push button starts the pump"

 

Any empty items can be left empty with just the required comma separators. For example, to specify just a description for an element, its line would be formatted as follows (Note that the Nickname and Extra Info fields are empty but their commas MUST exist in order to know that the text at the end is for the Description field):

"X0",,,"This push button starts the pump"

 

Commas are optional for empty fields at the end of the line. The following two lines are identical in their meaning in that they both define a Nickname for the point X0, but do not have an Extra Info or Description field:

"X0","StartPump",,

"X0","StartPump"

Valid Nickname, Extra Info, and Description

Nicknames can be any combination of 1 to 16 alphanumeric characters and underscores ('_', 'a-z', 'A-Z', 0-9), no spaces or punctuation marks are allowed, and must begin with a letter or an underscore. And since Nicknames can be used interchangeably with Elements, Nicknames must be unique within a project, that is, no duplicate Nicknames are allowed, and Nicknames cannot be named the same as an Element ID, for example, X0 is an invalid because, even thought it complies with the Nickname syntax rules, there is an Element ID by that name already in the project.

 

Extra Info can be any combination of 1 to 16 characters.

 

Description can be any combination of 1 to 144 characters.

 
Handling Unassigned Nicknames

Unassigned nicknames are nicknames that do not have corresponding PLC elements assigned to them. When viewed in the Documentation Editor, unassigned nicknames are displayed with the Element field set to Unassigned Bit, Unassigned Numeric, or Unassigned Structure as appropriate. The following is an example of the correct import file format for the possible unassigned nickname types Unassigned Bit, Numeric, and Structure:

 

"UB","Open","Blue, 000","Door Open/Close Switch"

"UN","DoorWeight","","in Pounds"

"US","LightTimer","","Door Moving Warning Light Duration"

 

See Also:

 

Related Topics: