I've been a consistent user of DirectSOFT for the last six years so I was very interested to check out AutomationDirect's new release of DirectSOFT5.  This is both an overview of the new features and a review as to their usefulness.  We’ll start with some first impressions like new icons, toolbars, themes and dockable views and then discuss the important internal changes with IBoxes.  There have also been significant moves made in how Automation Direct packages and sells DirectSOFT which should factor into whether to upgrade or not.

Beveled Theme

Whoa! Even the menu buttons are beveled.

Fancy Theme

This one's for the hippies

Automation Direct's DirectSOFT5 programming software has a Tip of the Day feature. There's some good tips in there so I've reproduced them here for easier reading.

• The Online Status Bar is now an integrated part of the main Status Bar on the bottom of the application.

Everything you need to simulate inputs into an Automation Direct DL205 digital input module.