Update DBDOC

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Updates are free for your first year.

Following your first year of support, technical support and new versions are available with our DBDOC support and update (SU) service.

Support and Update Service subscribers can:

• Update Hyperview Now
• Update CIUMon Now
• Contact us to update your Build system

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For a printable and even more in-depth overview, see our full release notes .

Updates in DBDOC 11.6

Overall and Highlights

• System data for Hyperview (bookmarks, annotations, home pages) can now be built into the dbdoc file to ensure every user of that file has the same settings without any manual fiddling required.
• Tooltips on function block inputs and outputs show the function of the signal.
• Sortable tables in Hyperview for tag databases and a variety of AC 800M data types.
• 800xA graphics now have linked PDF files & embedded images.
• Chapter organization has been rationalized for 800xA and SPlus graphics.
• Support for external web links in text, PDF, and SPO graphics.
• Major Error Browser performance improvements.
• Hyperview In a Web Browser can now use HTTPS.
• Live text strings are displayed in 800xA and SPO graphics via FC151 Text Selector Blocks.
• Better support for HGS / HPG / GPI MDB files, and improved tag linking for Batch, PDF, AutoCAD, and Microstation files

Builds

• Shared/System data for .dbdoc files:
  • A new option has been added to the Hyperview/.Dbdoc Options page to let the user indicate that they want the user data from the “System” Hyperview to be built into the dbdoc file. The data included would be the Home Page, Text Annotations, Live Loop Annotations, and Bookmarks.
  • The Shared Data Folder option, for data shared in folders outside of .dbdoc files, has been updated to reflect that only the Error Status is now sharable via this method.
• When building from AFW files:
  • No specifications needed at the Wizard stage of the build to include graphics folders; pointing to the folder containing AFW backup files in the initial System Files Specification dialog is now sufficient, and the rest handled automatically.
  • Added wildcard directory selection in the System Files Specification dialog for 800xA Backups, with beheaviour like SPE and Excel files: the latest backup matching the wildcard will be chosen automatically on subsequent project rebuilds, so changes are incorporated into the latest .dbdoc file without any manual user intervention needed.
  • Warning if backup is more than 30 days old.
  • Allow the user to select which chapters of graphics are to be included in the final .dbdoc (all chapters are automatically selected on new builds).
  • Support for previously unimplemented PG2 scripting operators and missing definitions, datatypes, and properties has been added, improving the display of the graphics that were generating them.
  • Changes to scripting operators helped fix major V5.1 PG2 issues in rendering those graphics.
  • Rendering and inclusion of symbols and submodels has been refined.
  • Graphics subtitles are displayed if they are different from the title.
  • Support added to render XAML drawings in PG2 graphics
  • Many improvements to automatic tag linking, hotspots, and text.
  • Global control modules, PLC objects, hardware channels and associated objects, MB300 objects, and AC800M object descriptions are now all found and included.
  • A NOSERVER taglist is now created to include tags attached to no server.
  • Alarm priority descriptors look more sensible now.
  • File viewer attachments now automatically included in builds.
  • EUDSCP.CF files are being generated and included, with priority over other descriptor files.
  • A specific log file (afw_extractor.err) is written to and --version and --help options have been added to the commandline AFW extraction tool for debugging thorny problems or advanced users making their own uses of the extracted AFW backup contents.
  • Other new files for support/analytical purposes: tags_in_graphics.tsv/dbf and pg2_dependencies.txt.
• When building in AutoCAD files:
  • Attributes.txt modified to get more AutoCAD links.
  • New option added to allow user to specify the fonts to be used with exported AutoCAD (.DXF) files.
  • Automatic attempt to recover files that were previously being skipped due to an exception thrown by the processing library used.
  • When it is determined that the bounds of a drawing are zero, the file will be skipped in processing rather generating a misleading entry in the table of contents.
• SPO/SPlus graphics:
  • Colour rendering on graphics has been improved, including but not limited to:
    • vast improvements on EU visibility
    • title bars on graphics now appear in the correct colours
    • text is now appearing on graphics when it used to be rendered as black on black
    • multi-line text now formatted to appear in the same color so all lines are visible
    • vector label text colors corrected
  • Hotspot and text positioning, sizing, content, and rendering have been improved. All font information supplied is now being used to render text to match that at the client site. Multi-line text on .mimic files now display the correct content rather than the tag name. In some cases, .bin and .mimic files were showing graphic titles as NULLPAGE; a valid, tidied up title is now appears.
  • Some dynamic bar handling has been refined. Horizontal dynamic bars are drawn filled left/right rather than down/up and vice-versa for vertical bars.
  • Better calculation of dimensions and bounds for the full graphic and some of the elements within now render the full display of a graphic and corrected depiction of the elements.
  • The issue of graphics displaying far too many instances of the same tag name on a graphic plus extraneous text has been resolved.
  • Duplicated EU search hits have been fixed.
  • More vector links are being made on buttons. We are also suppressing making vector links for “DISPLAY NAME”/”DISPLAYNAME” when there is no valid target and when target graphics have names like “0”. There were also some duplicated vector links being generated which is now fixed.
  • Reduce dependency on the splus_image_filepath directive to supply the location of JPG images. Hyperlink will look in known folders to locate the required image; if it is not found then an error message will report the missing image.
  • Improved XML file processing.
• PDF handling:
  • Less memory usage when processing PDFs
  • PDF files are checked for validity and, if found to be “bad”, are skipped in processing.
  • Implement using “tag parts” when attempting to match strings to tags, the same methodology used on other document types.
  • Support for links to external URLs (also on SPE and text documents).
  • Mildly improved internal PDF rendering.
• In the Batch file processing, links to tags on batch files have been restored and the full text search on batch programs has been improved.
• Performance improvements:
  • Processing during the database scanning stage has been sped up.
  • There is a new directive “error_limit” to set the maximum number of errors that can be shown in Error Browser in a given build. This setting can be added via the Custom Edits in BuildPlus.
• Improvements for when things go unexpectedly wrong:
  • When BuildPlus enounters a failure while building AC 800M Documentation files, the build will be aborted in automatically-run/commandline builds. In interactive builds the user will be queried.
  • If a thumbnail fails to generate, the build will still continue.
  • When a drive or remote computers specified in a builldroot is not accessible (i.e. disconnected), BuildPlus will no longer try to continuously create a folder on the non-existent drive. Instead, it will be put into a state where it has no project opened and the user can then navigate to a different project or remedy the situation.
  • Checks have been added to ensure that the appropriate outputs from a Decomposer run are present. If they are not, BuildPlus will trigger a rerun so the files are regenerated and available for the build.
• CLI improvements:
  • Two new BuildPlus.exe options:
    • /importbri to import a whole buildroot.
    • /replace to replace an existing project with the specified import project information.
  • More return codes have been to help pinpoint the reasons for failure on commandline and scripted runs.
  • For more info, please contact us! These are advanced options largely added for internal testing purposes, but we would be very interested to hear how they could be of help to you and to aid in any deployment of their use. For example, internally these are used to ensure a clean set-in-stone configuration is used for test builds and to programmatically check for, and report, failed builds.
• Miscellaneous fixes and changes including:
  • New error[340] reports unconnected wires.
  • The rules for tag part matching have been made stricter to eliminate bogus links and hotspots on bad terms.
  • .BMP images are now also supported, alongside the existing PNG and JPEG support for arbitrary image files to be included in a build.
  • Correct handling of projects with names starting with the string “FC” to avoid accidentally deleting necessary project files.
  • Remove the selection of shape.lbr, project.jhd, and user macro libraries from Wizard and remove the directives from the project files. Hyperlink is now able to get the necessary information contained in these files from its internal processing or knowing where the information can be fetched from (including known locations for those files).
  • Overloaded external link handling added on XLS database pages, PDFs, and text documents. External links without conflict appear in green; links that have both tag and external links will appear in blue with a green arrow directing you to the external link.
  • Fix for a buildall failure during the database-graphics association phase when the option to build with no databases is chosen.
  • A few fixes/changes have gone in for the live data handling. A correction has been made to add CIUMon settings when using the tool “Short Build from CFG Stage.” As well, an issue was discovered where demo data settings were not getting built in when they were being chosen; this has been fixed.
  • BuildPlus will generate two new files for informational purposes. Excluded_Files.txt will list the files that have caused issues hyperlink, AFW backup, or AC 800M documentation processing. Sys_Info.txt will list the system information such as the graphics and configuration used.
  • A rework of the appearance of the Global Options.
  • General tweaks for project rewrites and GUI display.
  • Various modifications and fixes have gone in for the System File Specification stage to correct the dates being displayed and to show the loop, PCU, and module information for HGS, HPG, and GPI files.
  • Suppress the creation of pseudotags for constant blocks 1 thru 9 and module status 0. We also now suppress the creation of pseudotags for GPI/HPG/HGS to fix duplicate labels.
  • The order in which any chosen databases are presented in the database chapter has been modified so that the preferred databases are listed and processed first.
  • SPO .bin and .g files are now organized into chapters based on the directory structure found in the sibling “work” directory. If a corresponding .mimic file is not found for a given .bin file, that file will be put into the “NO SOURCE” directory. This chapter organization is on by default. If the user wishes the chapters to be made based on where the .bin/.g files are originally found then there is an option available in the “Advanced Options” which can be checked to turn this off.
  • In SPE projects, BuildPlus previously missed updating the paths for .vfy files when the source was specified via wildcards, thus causing a build failure. This has been corrected so when a new backup is generated, the build should proceed successfully.
  • Add support for CPolygon.3 to complete processing of .CLD file.
  • *-Specs.tsv files generated in the Exports folder will contain the same data as that which is exported in FCnnn.tsv with the addition of the FCnnn tag name, sheet, and specs to each record.
  • Remove the requirement for a database to have an INDEX in order for it to be processed as a tag database; records will be generated with LPMB information. We have also improved the naming for records found in generic databases.
  • Ladder diagrams have multi-line tooltips with newlines in them, formatted to appear as they do on CADs.
  • Set the datatype on FC151 hotspots to have type VT_TEXT so live data hotspots now appear.

CIUMon

A light release for our venerable live-data fetcher and conveyer, with just two small user-facing changes:

• Some socket re-initialization handling has been added.
• The “Approved IP Address Range” entry has been tweaked to make the flow of entering new data fields easier.

Hyperview

Some of these improvements will immediately work when using Hyperview (either as a native Windows application, or via your web browser), though others require rebuilding your .dbdoc file with the latest BuildPlus first.

• Various changes to handle text and column header placement, column widths, and column sorting on .dbdoc pages.
• Error browser:
  • Internal .dbdoc database rework to add an error_master table for Hyperview to use to improve Error Browser performance, particularly on launch and when expanding branches.
  • A quirk where the Error Browser would not appear after being minimized and Hyperview being reopened after closing has been fixed.
• Fixes for links when browsing through and syncing the Table of Contents. For example, reference index and function code index submodule pages will now go back to their parent index when using the Sync Table of Contents button. Browsing through the non-block point index has been corrected. Also, some tweaking to the general presentation of the Table of Content has been implemented.
• Annotations:
  • The positioning of live loop annotations on a page which has been set as the home page or a bookmark has been corrected. Issues with both text and live loop annotations positions while trying to maintain them within the bounds of a document have also been fixed, as well as some minor issues rubber band rendering.
  • Text annotations are allowed on text documents again.
  • When a page containing text annotations is printed, the annotations are now sized big enough to fit the full text.
  • The resizing of text annotations has been corrected to respect line feeds and to wrap text nicely when the box is made narrower.
  • New “Help…” option on the right-click context menu of text annotations.
• Live data:
  • Dynamic bars are now rendered under other live data values so that those values are not obscured by the bar.
  • Live text data is now provided for FC 151 text selector blocks.
  • The clock and camera buttons in Hyperview will be disabled if there are no live data hotspots on the currently viewed document.
  • The maximum values for live data update and stale data intervals has been set to 86400 seconds.
  • The display of “inaccessible live data” on live loop annotations has been changed to show a red hand so that these points can be easily distinguished from others.
  • Blocks 1 through 9 values are now hardcoded to return constant values.
  • On the Live Data Options For This Block dialog, the search button is disabled if the tag field is blank and Value for Tag Name is selected. This prevents a long search and every tag being returned.
• Searching:
  • Topic Title Search has been corrected to use 16-bit Unicode text encoding to find all hits when the keyword contains wide characters.
  • Sorting of the results by clicking on the group header has been corrected so that the sort is sensible. Also, a quirk with setting the correct selection after a sort has been fixed.
  • General GUI fixes for the search results window:
    • The next/previous hit arrows are enabled properly and the hits receive highlights and vegas lights when scrolled through.
    • When a topic title search is launched via the context menu (i.e. right click, Search For -> Topic Title Search), the search is performed once the dialog opens (as opposed to waiting for a keystroke).
    • On Full Text Search, if multiple selections are made in the Groups list, these choices are retained between search runs.
    • Most of the keyboard inputs have been disabled for the Topic Title Search results box.
  • Minor tweaks were made for annotation searches. We suppress complaints about mismatched parentheses when the regex option is disabled and the search string contains a bracket. As well, the display of newline characters and tabs show up properly now in the annotation search results.
  • Fixed a bug where an error was being thrown if the search string started with parentheses.
• Watch Window:
  • Fixed the display of some plot ticks in Watch Window. The root cause was the handling of digital points and whether the point type was being honoured.
  • Fix the display of double negative values in a range on a Watch Window print.
  • The axis label will be cleared on redraws.
  • Correct the export of bad quality data when the option to suppress them is not chosen but suppressing empty timeslots is.
  • Changing the block after it has been created and data has been collected will no longer be allowed.
• External links on PDFs now appear in green.
• Support added for links to external websites from hotspots on the content pane. A right-click context menu will show the option to open the link. Clicking on the link should open the page in your default browser.
• General modifications/fixes:
  • Correct copying selection to clipboard on text documents.
  • Add T to the hotkeys to toggle on and off tags on CAD sheets.
  • Generate a useful filename for the output from the Audit Window File / Export feature, based on the title rather than on the URL.
  • Correct the rendering of bubbles on CAD sheets when in GDI+ rendering mode. We have also added more support for hatch patterns in GDI+.
  • Modified the GMCL Help menu to give the options to either go to the GMCL help website or send an e-mail to support.
  • Mislabeling of PLCs – GPI, HPG, HGS – as AC 800M in the context menu corrected.
  • The “Log meta debug commands” option has been removed from the options page. It can still be triggered from the command line with the /logmeta argument. Metafile commands will only be logged once per file, clearing if a new redraw if done.
• Fix the zoom behaviour on the AutoCAD Color Map.
• Use improved networking code on pre- and post-Windows 10 OS versions, which should automatically reinstate connections. (Oddly, while this does not work on Windows 10, it does work on Windows 11 and related Server releases.)
• Straightened out the handling for sticky table headers and sortable tables in both the desktop and browser versions of Hyperview.
• Mouse and keyboard shortcuts tweaks and fixes:
  • When in full screen mode, attempting to use any of the Table of Contents commands and their shortcuts (sync: Y, top-level TOC: C, treeview: Ctrl+T) will cause Hyperview to exit full screen mode and the change reflected in the index pane.
  • Reimplemented that using the Tab key moves the highlight from hotspot to hotspot.
  • We have extended Shift + right-click to other hotspots to show more hotspot details.
• Pre-processing of large HTML pages has been sped up (this change needs to be used with the 11.6 version of Hyperlink to see the speed improvement).
• And of course various fixes for freezes, crashes, and slowdowns noticed.

Hyperview Webserver

• Using Caddy, we now support serving Hyperview to web browsers over secure HTTPS connections. This option is available in the Hyperview Service Controller when you add or modify a service. Checking the Enable HTTPS option will trigger the set up of the secure connection; you will need to close and re-launch the web page to see the changes.
  • Caddy + Hyperview Service Controller can generate certificates and keys automatically (you will then have to either manually tell your browser to trust them, or distribute and install the certificates),
  • or you can use existing keys and certificates signed by your own in-house certificate authority.
• The dashed lines now appear consistent between desktop and browser Hyperview.
• Full text search bug fixed where it was appearing blank under certain circumstances.
• Corrected the display of “bad” characters.
• Pre-emptive handling to prevent crash in future .dbdoc files if non-thumbnail images are added to html pages.
• Hyperview Service Controller now has the option to start and stop all services at once.
• New CLI options allow you to programmatically invoke HyperviewServiceController.exe:
  • /servicecmd=suspend to stop all currently running services
  • /servicecmd=resume to resume all services that were "suspended"
  • /servicecmd=startauto to start all services configured to autostart

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And since the initial 11.6 release, further updates include:

• No major recent changes since version release

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Updates in DBDOC 11.5

Systems:

SPE 2.x and Composer systems

• CLDs are now presented in the ABB document index order to be consistent with general usage.
• BATCH programs are now organized in a single chapter by program name.

Improved support for 800xA graphics

• Graphics are now generated directly from the full AFW backup, requiring no additional tools.
• Extracted graphics are presented in chapters related to the project structure.
• Tags are also extracted from the AFW backup, and full tag information is now presented.

Extended support for AC 800M systems

• DBDOC supports both mixed Harmony / AC 800M and exclusively AC 800M systems.
• Full navigational and search support has been implemented.
• Multipage sequence diagrams are automatically merged for easy visualization and navigation.

Improved support for SPlus graphics

• Improved handling of SPO 3.3 .mimic & .bin files.
• All .mimic graphics are presented in a single chapter to represent a single HMI.
• Many improvements to hotspot, link, and text generation and placement.

Merged EWS Taglist and improved exports

• Each SPE or Composer project now gets a merged list of tags for synchronization with graphics.
• Tags containing “Copy” in the name are excluded.
• Taglists are now automatically exported with specs during the build process, facilitating identifying CLD spec and database setting mismatches.

Hyperview:

Graphical exports

• Hyperview can export full-sized screenshots for use by other programs. Relevant meta-information (size, title, etc) is also exported.

Web Browser ease-of-use

• A no-login mode has been added and made the default for Hyperview In A Web Browser, so that Hyperview pages can be viewed without the need for user accounts. This would, for example, allow for inclusion of Hyperview pages in internal web portals.

Search improvements

• Search All Titles now matches to anywhere in the title string, not just the start.
• Search All Titles no longer “waits” for slow searches – keep typing and the search will restart.
• Hyperview text search results can now be exported to a TSV file.

Easier identification of new errors in Hyperview's Error Browser

• Running Error Browser on an older file resets the “new” markers without affecting the user flags, allowing version by version examination of errors.

Miscellaneous

• Bookmarks now save both panes.
• F(x) function graphs are now persistent, and don’t need to be recreated when you leave the CLD.

And since the initial 11.5 release, further updates included:

• 2025-10-10T07:12:11-06:00 [Build, CIUMon, Hyperview]
• IPP V5.1 missing many submodels
• Linked tagnames and atoms required 11.6
• Problem with AC 800M tag searching?
• 2025-08-07T21:53:56-06:00 [Build, CIUMon, Hyperview]
• Tweak to order of AFW chapters in Table of Contents
• 2025-05-30T01:25:26-06:00 [Build]
• Links to web pages in S+
• 2025-05-19T08:22:59-06:00 [Build]
• Update ODA library for AutoCAD-handling to version 25.8, currently supports AutoCAD format versions AC1009 through to the latest format AC1032 (used by AutoCAD 2018/2019/2020/2021/2022/2023/2024).
• 2025-05-06T20:41:25-06:00 [Build]
• Revisit providing support for "external web page" hotspots
• Split xlsx2csv handling of xls and xlsx to use different, updated Python modules
• Support external URL links in .xls/.xlsx databases
• Support external urls on text documents
• Support external web page hotspots on PDFs
• Update shipped Python to 3.12.7
• 2025-01-16T23:50:26-07:00 [Build]
• [800xA] GUID tag links to AC800M work now.
• 2024-12-05T17:34:47-07:00 [Build]
• SPO: Graphics can have "A" instead of live data
• 2024-11-28T22:16:06-07:00 [Build]
• [800xA] Allow selection of which AFW graphics chapters to include in build
• 2024-11-28T21:49:16-07:00 [Build, Build, Hyperview]
• Export all databases used in consoles to TSV files, making much of the raw data built into a .dbdoc file available to Excel wizards and other such power users
• If Internet Explorer's "Allow Programmatic clipboard access" security setting is set to "disabled", copying from text documents within Hyperview wouldn't work. A fallback method that avoids tripping this restriction was added. Copy/paste from text documents within Hyperview should now work on all systems.

• No major recent changes since version release