Citect for Windows Version 5.01

Welcome to Citect Version 5.01 for Windows 95 and Windows NT (version 4 and above).

What's New

See the What's New in the Online Help system for details of new features for this version. For a detailed listing of problems that have been fixed in this release, see Relnotes.doc (found in the Citect 'bin' directory).

Hardware Requirements

You may have to upgrade your computer equipment to run version 5 as the minimum requirements have been increased. Citect version 5 runs under Windows 95 or Windows NT4.0 - you cannot use Windows NT 3.xx with Citect.

Minimum requirements:

Windows 95 486 100MHz processor with 16MB of RAM.
Windows NT 486 100MHz processor with 24MB of RAM.

Preferred requirements:

Windows 95 Pentium 100MHz processor with 24MB of RAM.
Windows NT Pentium 100MHz processor with 32MB of RAM.

In either case, you will need at least 100MB of free hard disk space. You will require more if you have large projects.

NOTE: If you need to do very complex graphics, for best results you will require a Pentium 166MHz (or faster) processor, with an additional 8MB of RAM. Larger projects will require more RAM.

Installation Hints & Tips

Automatic CD Setup

Some CD-ROM drivers do not support Autorun, which automatically executes the installation program when you insert the CD into the drive. If your CD driver does not support Autorun, you will need to use the Windows Explorer to execute the file CDSETUP.EXE (found in the root directory of the CD) directly.

SQL & ODBC Error Messages

Some Customers have encountered problems installing Citect Version 5.01 when Office 97 is already installed. The symptoms can include "SQL error, ODBC error" at the time of installation or an application error when trying to start the Citect Explorer. This can be the result of Office 97 installing a new version of the Microsoft ODBC manager on your machine, but failing to re-install all of the ODBC drivers required by other applications such as Citect. To rectify the problem, go to the VALUEPACK\DATAACC directory on your Office 97 CD and run the install program, Dataacc.exe. This will update all of your ODBC drivers. You may then need to reinstall Citect.

Licence Key with Windows NT

The Sentinel Hardware Protection key driver will be setup automatically during the installation of Citect version 5.01. Windows must then be rebooted to complete the driver installation. NOTE: Some versions of the Citect Getting Started brochure incorrectly state that the Sentinel driver must be installed manually.

The Following Known Problems Exist with this Version

Conditions Are Not Always Saved for Multi-state Symbol Sets

There is currently a problem when configuring the conditions for multi-state symbol sets, that the conditions will be lost on closing the dialog. If you configure a Symbol Set, and only put expressions into the 'A' condition and the 'C' condition, for example, then when you close the dynamic properties dialog, the conditions you entered will be lost. This problem can be worked around by making sure you enter FALSE for every condition in-between. For example, if you only planned to place expressions into the 'A' condition and the 'D' condition, then enter FALSE into the 'B' and 'C' conditions as well.

Control Double Clicking on Objects Within Nested Templates Does Not Work

If you create a template based on say, the 'Normal' template, then when you use your template (either for a page, or as the basis of another template), you will not be able to access any of the objects from the 'Normal' template using Control + Double Click. This problem will be corrected in a future version of Citect.

Path Substitution Does Not Work for Report Format Field

The Report Format Field in the Project Editor has a problem accepting path substitution. For example, [MYPATH]results.rtf will not work. You can work around this problem by specifying the path manually, for example, d:\mydata\results.rtf.

Colour Depth Used While Configuring Projects

There are some known problems that only appear while the PC used to configure projects is running in non 8-bit modes, ie true colour or hi-colour modes (15, 16, 24 and 32+ bits per pixel). Until a fix can be made for this problem use a 256 colour (8 bit) screen mode while configuring projects.

Known Problems in non 8-bit Modes:

  • The background (fast runtime display) is too dark at Runtime. This occurs when saving a page in a true colour mode.
  • Flashing colours do not flash.
  • Convert to bitmap in the Graphics Builder changes transparent areas to white. Also, some colours are a slightly different shade.
  • The bitmap editor in the Graphics Builder does not always refresh the pixel grid properly after editing.
  • Copy to clipboard from the Graphics Builder does not look the same.
  • Additional non-configured border colouring appears around objects in Graphics Builder.

Dynamic Properties for Groups Do Not Work

Any dynamic properties configured for a pasted symbol (where the symbol does NOT consist of a single bitmap) will not have any effect at runtime. Any dynamic properties configured will take effect in a future version of Citect.

Graphics Builder Animation Testing

In previous versions, the configuration of an animation object's states could be tested in the Graphics Builder by applying consecutive right clicks. This functionality is no longer available.

Setting up TCP or UDP Communications

Setting up TCP or UDP Communications

When using the Express Communication Wizard to setup TCP or UDP communications, the Port Number field does not contain a default value. To ensure correct operation, the user should enter a port number in this field. Use the Driver Help button to obtain the I/O Device-specific default value.

Auto-Starting of the WinRT Service

Auto-Starting of the WinRT Service

Citect configures the WinRT service to automatically start when Windows NT boots up. This can cause communication problems for other software (e.g. - PLC software) which also uses hardware configured in Citect, e.g. - Allen Bradley KT cards with RSLogix. This problem can be worked around by manually stopping and starting the WinRT service inside Windows NT.

To do this;

  1. Open the Control Panel in Windows NT.
  2. Double Click on the Services icon.
  3. Find the WinRT service in the list and click the Stop button.
  4. Run your software.
  5. Once your software is running, start the WinRT Service again to allow Citect to work.

Citect Software Licensing

Citect Software Licensing

The Citect Software Licensing application must be closed before starting Citect Runtime, otherwise, problems such as Citect running in demo mode will occur.

Citect Security

Citect Security

The Online Help incorrectly describes some issues of Citect's security mechanism. Below is a description of how these issues actually work in Citect Version 5.01.

If a system element (graphics object, command, alarm, etc.) is assigned to an area, a user can only control it if specifically granted view access in that area. This is done through User Properties - Viewable Areas. This is the case even if the user has the required privileges.

The Online Help also implies that the areas listed in the User Properties - Viewable Areas field are View-Only. This is incorrect. The areas listed in this field are the areas that the user can see. To assign a user View-Only rights to an element, assign the element to an area, give it a privilege, add the area to the the list of Viewable Areas, but do not give the user the required privileges.

Further, the Online Help does not describe what happens if you do not assign a privilege to a system element. The implications of not assigning a privilege restriction depend upon whether you have used areas in your security setup:

No Areas - All operators have full control of the element.

- All operators have full control of the element.

Areas - An operator will only need view access to the area assigned to this element to have full control over the element (see User Properties - Viewable Areas).

- An operator will only need view access to the area assigned to this element to have full control over the element (see User Properties - Viewable Areas).

Trend Display

Trend Display

A small graphics glitch will occur when the "Scroll to Real Time" button is pressed on a trend page in Citect Runtime. This will result in a small gap in the trend display, however, no data is lost. This can be verified by reviewing the trend history.

 

Upgrading Citect to Version 5.01

Alarm Summary Description is corrupted

Alarm Summary Description is corrupted

In Citect version 5.00, the Summary Description field (SumDesc), on the Alarm Summary page, will not retain the original set value for an alarm. Citect Version 5.01 provides a fix for this problem, but to keep compatibility until all computers have been upgraded, the fix is disabled by default. This is controlled by the Citect INI parameter [Alarm]VariableSumDesc on the Alarm Servers.

Citect version 5.01 Display Clients can accept data from both version 5.00 and version 5.01 Alarm Servers, but they will only display the correct Alarm Summary Descriptions when talking to version 5.01 Alarm servers with VariableSumDesc set to 1. Please note that you must be running Citect version 5.01 (or Citect version 5.00 with Service Pack E), on all computers, otherwise you will experience corrupted Alarm Summary lists on computers running version 5.00. This can be seen on the Alarm Summary page as "Bad Record Identifier", which will appear in the Alarm Summary entries.

Example Upgrade

Given a Primary Alarm Server (Computer A), a Secondary Alarm Server (Computer B), and several Display Clients, all running Citect version 5.00, an example upgrade path would be :

  1. Upgrade all Display Clients to Citect version 5.01.
  2. Shutdown Computer B and upgrade it to Citect version 5.01. Leave VariableSumDesc set to its default (0) and restart Citect.
  3. Shutdown Computer A and upgrade it to Citect version 5.01. Set VariableSumDesc to 1 and restart Citect.
  4. Shutdown Computer B. Set VariableSumDesc to 1 and restart Citect.

NOTE : Summary entries that have been saved to the alarm almsave.dat file while using version 5.00 will appear as before when the upgrade to version 5.01 has been completed. Only new entries will have the correct Summary Description.

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