Layout and how to work in it

Editor

ctrl32 Editor is an installed application, not a web page. The reason is simple: it draws exactly the pixels you will see on the panel — the same renderer as in the firmware is built into it, fonts, roundings and colours included. What you see is what gets downloaded.

Layout

Part	Where	What is in it
Menu	top	File, Edit, View, Project, Build, Online, Debug, Tools, Window, Help
Toolbar	under the menu	new, save, undo/redo, TEST, ONLINE, download
Project tree	left	the board and everything running on it
Documents	centre	every tree node has a page, opened as a tab
Status bar	bottom	the result of the last build, the connection state

The bug icon at the top right opens mail to bugs@ctrl32.com — reporting a fault should be one click from wherever you hit it.

The tree follows the hardware, not the protocols

project
  board
    Application          programs, variables, visualizations, axes
    CAN                  the bus itself: bitrate, termination
      Raw CAN            frame-to-tag mapping
      CANopen master     + devices
    RS485                the line: baud, parity, stop bits
      Modbus RTU master  + devices
      Modbus RTU slave   the panel as a slave
    Ethernet             DHCP/static IP, mDNS
      Modbus TCP         master and slave
      MQTT               telemetry / Home Assistant
    I2C, SPI             local buses and chips
    Settings

One wire can carry several protocols, and the same protocol can run on two wires (Modbus on RS485 and on Ethernet). Sorting by protocol could not express that; this way matches both the hardware and CoDeSys.

Settings live on pages, not in the right-click menu

A context menu holds actions — add, delete, rename. Never settings. The bus speed is on the bus page, where a person looks for it. A popup is only for picking from a catalog (boards, devices, dictionary objects).

Nodes for features that are not finished yet are in the tree as well — their page says so. A customer has to see what the panel can have, not guess it.

Icon	What it does
⊞	new project
💾	save project
↶ ↷	undo / redo (both unlimited; the count is in the Edit menu)
▶ / ■	TEST — simulation inside the editor, without a panel
⏸ ⏭	pause and single-cycle step (during a test)
🔌	ONLINE — connect to a real panel
⭳	download to the panel (F5) — the only coloured icon in the bar

There is deliberately only one blue icon. Downloading into a machine is an action that must not be confused with any other; everything else is a flat icon like in any ordinary application.

TEST — simulation without a panel

The ▶ button switches the editor into running: the PLC cycle runs on the PC, screens react, blocks compute, tags change. It can be paused and stepped cycle by cycle (Debug → Step).

What runs is the same bytecode and the same block library as in the panel — the VM is compiled for the PC as well. So logic can be debugged at your desk and reach the machine finished.

The difference from online monitoring: TEST computes the values, ONLINE reads them from the machine.

Build (F7) and download (F5)

F7 only builds the project and reports the result. F5 builds and downloads it.

When a build fails, a window opens with the whole output — the text can be selected and copied with a button, and the same text is in build\last_build_error.txt. A truncated line in the status bar was never enough for anyone to help you with.

Language and theme

View → Language and View → Dark theme. The choice is remembered between runs.

Licence

Help → Licence shows the level (DEMO / SMALL / MEDIUM / FULL) and lets you enter one. The rule is simple:

drawing, programming and simulating work in DEMO too,
talking to a real panel — download and online alike — is paid.

Details in Licensing.

Updates

Help → Check for updates looks at our web and tells you whether a newer version exists. Downloading is manual — the editor never updates itself behind your back, because the editor version is tied to what is running in customers' panels.