Announcing DBDOC 10.6

We're delighted to announce that DBDOC 10.6 is now available for download, with major usability improvements, new subsystem support, and of course bug fixes and general enhancements. 

Read on to learn more about some of DBDOC's new features and capabilities.

Error Markers

In Hyperview, you will notice the new error markers right away, flagging locations on documents where DBDOC has detected a possible error situation.

Mouse over a marker to see the detailed error message.  Double click on the marker to bring up the error browser with full error information. 


 

 

You may see error markers that turn out to be flagging harmless situations. If this is the case, just hide the error (or category of errors) in the error browser, and set it to display only "Active" (i.e. non-hidden) errors. The error marker will no longer show up on your document.

Watch Window Navigation Plot 

Managing large datasets in the Watch Window has become much easier with the introduction of the "navigation plot".  This is a birds-eye view of all the data collected in a plot, with a draggable frame showing the part of the plot visible in the main plot area, essentially a graphical scrollbar.  Just drag the frame to view different data collection runs.

 

In addition, there are now automatic markers inserted at the beginning and end of every data run (indicated by small green or flag flags on the plot).  You can jump from marker to marker using the new "Data Run Marker Navigation" buttons below the plot.

 

No More Missing Lines*

* with minor caveats (see below).

Users of Hyperview on remote desktops and certain other situations will be happy to learn that the issue of "missing lines" on CAD sheets and the like has been sorted out once and for all (except for on Win NT 6.0 platforms Windows Server 2008 and Vista, which have different underlying graphics support -- we are still working on those).  If missing lines affect you, most likely in a remote desktop context, switch to the GDI+ graphics library in the View tab of the Options dialog.

Do your lines look like this?

 

Enable GDI+ to fix them.

 

Copy Text from Graphics

For the first time, DBDOC supports the right-click copying and pasting of text from graphics or CAD/CLDs.  You can also directly search the project or the help for text obtained in this manner.

Function Block Hotspots

For the first time, function blocks on configuration diagrams are live "hotspots".  Use them to add all the inputs and outputs for a function block at once to the Watch Window.

Bookmark Sharing

We are continuing to create support for user data sharing in Hyperview. In the last release we enabled the sharing of error information, so groups could collaborate on analyzing and reviewing errors.  Clearly the sharing of error data itself is highly desirable, and we are considering approaches.

In the meantime, bookmark sharing has been added to Hyperview.  No more copying and importing of bookmark files -- simply share them directly and interactively. You will see shared bookmarks right in your bookmarks list.

Chinese, PGP, and PG2

DBDOC 10.6 continues to expand the file types and subsystems supported. Most notably, Chinese language support for Composer and PGP graphics is now implemented (read more). Full HTML text support is on its way. General support for PGP and PG2 graphics has been improved in many ways.

Sibling Projects

DBDOC 10.6 introduces the concept of  "Sibling Projects," a major new capability.  Basically, if you have a huge system, you can break it up into sub-projects, and build each one with the configuration information from the other "sibling" projects, without including all the associated documents and graphics.  So you can get most of the benefit of DBDOC's connection analysis while keeping individual builds to a manageable size (and build time).   Learn more about sibling projects here.

CIUMon Configuration Manager

CIUMon supports more options and run modes with each passing year.  Ports and protocols, collector or relay, logging and statistics: once you have set up a configuration, you won't want to lose it.  Keep track of CIUMon configurations more easily than ever with the new CIUMON Configuration Manager, which makes it easy to store, filter, and retrieve configurations.



These are some of the new features you will encounter in DBDOC 10.6.  We would love your feedback, and to hear your suggestions for improvements in the next release.