Citect for Windows Version 5.10

Welcome to Citect Version 5.10 for Windows 95 and Windows NT (Version 4).

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 5.10 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.

Version Stamping of Citect Files
Version stamping of Citect Files has changed.

Versions prior to 5.10 could be identified by the file creation date and time. Eg All version 5.01 files had the creation time of 10 Feb 98 5:01AM.

Citect executables now use Windows versioning. The version of an EXE file can be checked with Windows Explorer File|Properties then selecting the version tab.

Customers should not rely on a file's creation date to identify its Citect version.

Page Resizing and Full Screen
The resizable pages feature is turned on by default, and will make upgraded projects behave differently. If you do not want to use this feature, Set the [Page]DynamicSizing parameter to 0 (Off). Also, if your existing project does not use the Windows Title Bar on graphics pages, you must set the [Animator]Fullscreen parameter to 1 (regardless of whether the resizable pages feature is enabled or not).

The resizable pages feature is turned on by default, and will make upgraded projects behave differently. If you do not want to use this feature, Set the [Page]DynamicSizing parameter to 0 (Off). Also, if your existing project does use the Windows Title Bar on graphics pages, you must set the [Animator]Fullscreen parameter to 1 (regardless of whether the resizable pages feature is enabled or not).

For further information refer to the What's New section of the Online Help.

 Licence Key with Windows NT

The Sentinel Hardware Protection key driver will be set up automatically during the installation of Citect version 5.10. Windows must then be rebooted to complete the driver installation. NOTE: Some versions of the Citect Getting Started booklet incorrectly state that the Sentinel driver must be installed manually.

The Following Known Problems Exist with this Version

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.

Citect Online Help Error Message
In some isolated instances, the following error message occurs when the Citect online help is invoked:

"Cannot display this help file. Try opening the help file again, and if you still get this message, copy the help file to a different drive, and try again. (136)"

If you experience this error, delete "Citect.gid" from the Citect Bin directory and then retry the help. (The .gid file is a configuration file for the online help. It will be re-created automatically.)

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
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.

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
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.

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

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

Animated Symbols update slowly
Version 3.4/4.2 animated symbols and version 5.0 symbol set objects update slowly on pages that have poor response times. Prior to this version animated symbols did not suffer from this problem, although symbol set objects did. The update rate of animated symbols is governed by the [Page]AnmDelay parameter, but if the response time for the page is larger than this figure then the speed of animated symbols and symbol set objects will be governed by that response time. This is a known problem that will be addressed in future releases of Citect.

Version 3.4/4.2 animated symbols and version 5.0 symbol set objects update slowly on pages that have poor response times. Prior to this version animated symbols did not suffer from this problem, although symbol set objects did. The update rate of animated symbols is governed by the [Page]AnmDelay parameter, but if the response time for the page is larger than this figure then the speed of animated symbols and symbol set objects will be governed by that response time. This is a known problem that will be addressed in future releases of Citect.

Upgrading from Citect Version 5.00

String Constant Expansion
In Citect version 5.01 and earlier there was a bug in the compiler which caused some string constants to be expanded using labels. For example if you passed "White" as a string to a function which was expecting an INT or REAL as an argument, the string "White" would be converted into 015. This was a bug because string constants should not be subject to expansion.

In version 5.10 and later this behaviour has been corrected. However, since some customers have built projects relying on this behaviour, a new parameter has been added to allow these customers to fix their projects.

See documentation of the parameter [General]BadOptimise for full details.

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 Versions 5.01 and 5.10 provide 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.

In Citect version 5.01 and earlier there was a bug in the compiler which caused some string constants to be expanded using labels. For example if you passed "White" as a string to a function which was expecting an INT or REAL as an argument, the string "White" would be converted into 015. This was a bug because string constants should not be subject to expansion.

Citect version 5.01 and 5.10 Display Clients can accept data from both version 5.00 and version 5.01/5.10 Alarm Servers, but they will only display the correct Alarm Summary Descriptions when talking to version 5.01/5.10 Alarm servers with VariableSumDesc set to 1. Please note that you must be running Citect version 5.01 or 5.10, 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 5.01/5.10.

2) Shutdown Computer B and upgrade it to Citect version 5.01/5.10. Leave VariableSumDesc set to its default (0) and restart Citect.

3) Shutdown Computer A and upgrade it to Citect version 5.01/5.10. 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 or 5.10 has been completed. Only new entries will have the correct Summary Description.

Future Versions
In Citect version 5.20 the parameter will be enabled by default. All Display Clients and Servers should have been upgraded to a version of Citect later than 5.00 (i.e. 5.01 or 5.10). You may then run version 5.20 together with versions 5.01 and 5.10 (remember you must enable the solution in these versions by setting the INI parameter [ALARM] Variable SumDesc=1).