# Release Migration History

Migrating projects from Cognex Designer 2.1 to Designer 2.5

This topic contains information about changes that may affect existing projects when migrating projects from Cognex Designer 2.1 to Designer 2.5 PR5.

- Using the Updated VisionPro Display 3D and New VisionPro Display 3D Status Bar

  The VisionPro Display 3D control has been updated with the new control introduced in VisionPro version 9.0, and VisionPro Display Status Bar 3D is a new control in Designer 2.5. This will affect projects that were using the VisionPro Display 3D control in their HMI.

  The following considerations apply to the new controls:

  - The previous VisionPro Display 3D included a right-click context menu which could be used to display the X, Y and Z coordinates either on the display itself, or in a built-in status bar (or both). These options have been removed from the new VisionPro Display 3D control. Now, in order to display the coordinates, you must add a VisionPro Display 3D Status Bar and configure the Subject property to the VisionPro Display 3D.
  - The VisionPro Display 3D does not support displaying 2D images as height maps; these types of images will not be displayed and a warning will be shown, instead.
  - The VisionPro Display 3D does not work when using a Windows Remote Desktop Connection. Third party options, such as VNC® or TeamViewer, may be used.
  - The VisionPro Display 3D requires a VisionPro security bit; therefore, previously created Designer projects will need to be updated with this security bit to continue to work correctly.
  - The VisionPro Display 3D will not work on virtual machines.

Migrating projects from Cognex Designer 2.0 to Designer 2.1

- New Project File Format

  The file format of Designer projects has been modified, and when projects developed in previous versions of Designer are opened and loaded in Designer 2.1, they will automatically be converted to the new format. Projects saved in Designer 2.1 cannot be opened in previous versions of Designer. For more information, see the Cognex Designer Version Compatibility topic.

- Recipes Folder Location

  For Designer 2.1, the folder location of Recipes will no longer be editable, and must be located in the following directory: <ProjectName>\Recipes\<RecipeName>

  Note: If you had edited the Recipe directory location in 2.0, you must manually move your Recipe folder into the new directory location.

- Recipes File Format Conversion

  Recipes will only be converted from XML to JSON format when they are being loaded through the System.Recipes.{RecipeName}.Load and the System.Recipes.{RecipeName}.LoadFile methods.

- New Template File Extension in Designer 2.1

  For the Designer 2.1 release, the Template file extension was updated from .cdt to .cdtx. The first time that you start Designer 2.1, all of your .cdt template files will be automatically converted to .cdtx files, with the same name. Both files will exist in the Templates directory (C:\Users\<username>\Documents\Cognex Designer\Templates).

  If you delete a .cdtx file, you will also need to delete the .cdt file. Otherwise, when you start Designer 2.1 again, or refresh the tree view in the Template Browser, Designer will automatically perform the conversion process again and recreate another .cdtx file, based on the .cdt file.

- Read IO and Write IO Block Visible Pins State Change

  In Designer 2.0, it was possible to add and configure Read IO and Write IO blocks with Visible Pins, even though they did not have the Selected Device property set to a supported device (Cognex Communication Card or Vision Controller). If a project is loaded in Designer 2.1 which has these types of Read IO and Write IO block configurations, the pins will not be visible until the Selected Device property is set, and any links between the pins will disconnected and have to be reset.

Migrating projects from Cognex Designer 1.0 to Designer 2.0

- MessageID Pin Type Changed

  The MessageID pin of the Notify PLC block in AsyncSoftEventComplete has been changed from a int (Int32) data type to a long (Int64) data type.

  Note: This does not cause any issue with existing projects.

- Opening 1.0 or 1.0 PR1 Projects in Designer 2.0

  When a Designer 1.0/1.0 PR1 project is opened in version 2.0, the UsedAcquisitionIDCollection pin of the Notify PLC block in InspectionCompleteMode will be replaced with two other pins: AcquisitionID0 and CameraIndex0. If you have more than one cameras, you can set it in the block’s Configuration UI.

- "Assign New Tag" Option

  Starting with Designer 2.0 the Assign to New Tag option on a pin does not initialize the created tag with the data-type’s default value.

- Read IO Block New Pin

  A new pin has been added to the Read IO Block: PrioState.

- Expression Builder

  The Expression Builder has been revamped. It is recommended to run a project verification that should identify any expressions that are no longer compatible.

- Opening 1.0 projects that have WriteIOBlock with pins

  When an 1.0 project is opened in version 1.0 PR1, the existing "DS1000OutputBank0Line0" "DS1000OutputBank0Line1" pins of a WriteIOBlock will be replaced with new empty pins. If the pins were assigned to tags, the connection to the tags will be no longer available. This means that the user has to reassign the pins to the tags (since they are still available in Tag Manager).

- Migrating Plugins From Designer 1.0 to 1.0 PR1

  After Designer 1.0 PR1 is installed, all new projects created using either 1.0 or 1.0 PR1, will use the 1.0.1 VisionPro Plugin. Old projects that use VisionPro Plugin 1.0.0.0 will need to be updated to VisionPro Plugin 1.0.1, using the Edit Project Plugins option from the Launcher. Click Edit Project Plugins, select the desired .cdp project file in the Open file dialog box, and check/uncheck the desired plugins.