Technical data

Startup and Operation
5.5 User Interface and Operation
Programming with STEP 7
Manual, 05/2010, A5E02789666-01 133
5.5 User Interface and Operation
5.5.1 Operating Philosophy
The aim: Easy Operation
It is the aim of the graphic user interface to provide maximum and intuitive operating comfort. You
will therefore find objects you already know from your daily work, e.g. stations, modules, programs,
blocks.
Actions you perform under STEP 7 include the creation, selection and manipulation of such
objects.
Differences to Tool-Based Operation
When starting work with conventional tools, the first thing you have to do is to choose the
appropriate tool for a specific solution and then call this tool.
The basic procedure of object-oriented operation is to select an object and then open it for editing.
Object oriented operation does not require knowledge of special instruction syntax. On the GUI,
icons you can open via menu command or mouse click represent objects.
When you open an object, the application automatically calls the appropriate software component
for displaying or editing the content of the object.
Continue ...
Below we describe the basic actions for editing objects. Please pay proper attention to this topic, as
all subsequent topics will be based on these basic operations.