EPLAN News 2.8

Protected Groups and Other New Settings for the Macro Box

Generating a protected group during insertion

Window and symbol macros can now be generated as a so called "protected group" during insertion. Such a group offers a graphical protection. This means the properties of the macro components can be edited but the macro itself cannot be changed graphically or further broken down.

Benefit:

Protected groups enable you to insert standardized macros graphically unalterable into the schematic. This could be useful if you want to insert devices or prefabricated schematic sections standardized in the schematic and want to prevent that deviations from this standard are realized.

To determine such a behavior there is a Generate protected group during insertion check box at the macro box in the new Settings tab. A settings possibility only exists in macro projects, if the type of usage "Defining" or "Not specified" was set for the macro box. Otherwise this check box is grayed out. (This also applies for other settings in this tab with the exception of the handle.)

Remove protected groups

If this grouping is to be removed for the inserted macros in a project, you can use the compression of projects. To do so, activate the new check box Remove protected groups in the dialog Settings: Compression in the Remove project data hierarchy level. This way the grouping is removed but the inserted macros and their components remain.

In the course of this extension the Remove groups setting - already existing in this dialog - has been renamed:

Old designation

New designation

Remove groups

Remove element groups

Note:

In contrast to the element and device groups, the grouping for protected groups cannot be deactivated temporarily by using the [Shift] key or canceling the option Consider groupings.

Individually determining the insertion of macro boxes

You can now determine for every macro individually whether the generated macro of the macro box is also inserted during the insertion. To this purpose the Also insert macro box drop-down list is available in the property dialog of the macro boxes in the new Settings tab. This list is used to determine the desired behavior. This setting is also taken into consideration when inserting a device, if a macro is stored for this device.

Benefit:

The new Also insert macro box setting at the macro boxes itself enables a better control over which macro boxes are also inserted during the insertion and which are not.

If you select the "From project settings" entry in this field, the project-wide setting Also insert macro boxes is used.

In the course of this extension, the Ignore macro box when inserting on mounting panel setting no longer needed was removed on the Macro box tab. When opening old macro projects this setting is automatically transferred. This way prepared macros, for which this setting was activated and which have the representation type "Panel layout", automatically have the "No" entry assigned for the Also insert macro box drop-down list.

Taking connection point designations into account during the device assignment and while updating macros

In order for the matching functions to be assigned or allocated from the stored macro during the assignment of functions or during the placement of complex devices, you can use the user setting Take the connection point designations into account during the device assignment to specify that in addition to the function definitions of the functions the connection point designations have to be identical as well. In the past this meant, for example, that during the placement of devices different settings had to be made depending on the stored macro.

In the new version you can now individually determine for each macro whether the connection point designations are to be taken into consideration. The drop-down list Take connection point designations into account in the new Settings tab is available at the macro box to this purpose. This list is used to determine the desired behavior.

Benefit:

The new Take connection point designations into account setting at the macro box allows you to prepare the macros individually depending on the requirements in the device concept.

This setting is also used when updating macros. If the value is set to "Yes" here, the connection point designations are transferred during the update from the macro files to the inserted macros in the schematic. If the value is set to "No", the connection point designations of the macros in the schematic are retained during the update.

If you select the "From user settings" entry in this field, the user-specific setting Take the connection point designations into account during the device assignment is used. And in the case of an activation the connection point designations are also transferred from the macro files.

Moved settings for the handle

In the course of these extensions the settings for this handle were moved from the Macro box tab to the new Settings tab.