Changing Multiple pin Direction/Style properties in Symbol Builder or Direct Edit

[jallenDBQ7U]

Is there an easy way to change a bunch of pins to have a different wire direction?  All of them are in a vertical column and thus easy to select.

As an example I created an Input module for my PLC I/O.  I then exploded a copy of it and did a mirror with plans to make a PLC Output module.  I was able to swap all of the attributes and snap points to be on the correct side/style.  When I enter Symbol Builder it still obviously shows Left when I want Right side pins for my wire terminals.  I tried to find a property for them in the environment both in Symbol Editor and external to it, but maybe I looked in the wrong place.

[jseefdrumr · Accepted solution]

Well...the symbol builder tool isn't a good choice for editing existing symbols, usually. It actually is completely devoid of modify functions, it can only create, move, or kill. So you need to know some things about how the wire connections work.

This is controlled by the wire connection attributes, which look like X?TERM??.

In this format, the first ? is a number, either 1,2,4, or 8. These numbers tell ACADE which direction the wire is approaching the symbol from:

X1 = wire approaches from the right

X2 = wire approaches from above/top

X3 = wire approaches from the left

X4 = wire approaches from below/bottom

The last ?? simply denote which terminal (TERM) this particular wire connection applies to.

Wires will attach themselves to the insertion point of the X?TERM?? attribute.

Here's how to fix your mirrored attributes:

1. first ensure that the insertion points of the wire connection attributes are properly located so that the wire gets trimmed in the right place.

2. click on each attribute to edit it. In each one, edit the X? portion to have the correct value for your wire connection. For instance, if all of your wires are approaching the symbol from the right side, then these should all be X1TERM??....X1TERM01, X1TERM02, X1TERM03, etc.

3. save and close

If you insert this into a drawing where it's already been, you won't see your edits until you erase all existing instances of that block and use PURGE to completely remove it form the drawing. After that, an insertion should reflect your edits.

[jallenDBQ7U]

Excellent!  Thank you.

[jseefdrumr]

whoops, I can't believe I messed this up. Correction below:

X1 = wire from the right

X2 = wire from above/top

X4 = wire from the left

X8 = wire from below/bottom

palm, meet forehead lolz

[jseefdrumr]

Also, if you have to make a lot of PLCs, I would suggest you take a look at parametric PLCs and the PLC Database File Editor. Especially awesome if you occasionally have ladders with different rung spacing than normal.

[jallenDBQ7U]

Evidently I did something wrong.  I just had something really weird and scary happen.  I made the change for switching wire direction from Left to Right.  I then did the "Test Block" command.  Every wire terminal worked great.  When I went to create my symbol I immediately noticed that it was trying to use a symbol name that would overwrite a symbol I created previously.  I then manually changed the file name and identifier to a number that was unique to everything else in the directory.  It wanted to overwrite HDV1_003.  I changed it to HDV1_005 with unique identifier as _005 which don't currently exist in the jic125 folder.  It then asked if I wanted to insert the symbol.  But it never inserted the symbol.  I saw "NIL" in the command area and it never saved my symbol either.

[jallenDBQ7U]

It appears to be okay now.  I did a full reboot of my computer to insure everything was reset.  It seems to be working okay for symbol creations now (didn't want to overwrite a previous symbol).  I still don't know what I did wrong.

[andykan168]

I am facing the same problem and I hope you will be active to reply.

Without the symbol builder, how can one edit the attribute of the direction? At most I could only edit the attribute values but not the attribute names. I could just add a value 'X4TERM01' to the attribute named 'X1TERM01'.