Introduction & Installation

Owned by Veronika Tannewitz
Last updated: Aug 29, 2024 by Marcus Tangermann
3 min read

Applicability of the Documentation

 The documentation of the Industrial Communication Creator by port consists of a User-Manual and an Online Help System integrated in the Communication Creator. Both parts describe the usage of the Unified Communication Creator platform and the Industrial Communication Creator in particular. 

Product Overview

For comfortable and easy configuration and object dictionary management, port provides its Unified Communication Creator Platform which enables the user to develop communication solutions using port stacks rapidly.

The individual functionality for each stack is realized by plug-ins for each protocol. So the user has only to learn how to work with one tool.

The Industrial Communication Creator contains the Unified Communication Creator Platform as well as the plug-in for port’s PROFINET and EtherNet/IP IO stack and CANopen and EtherCAT Library.

Product Delivery

The Industrial Communication Creator can be downloaded from port’s website at http://www.port.de  It comes as zip archive which can be extracted using the operating system specific tools.

System Requirements

The Industrial Communication Creator is available for Linux, Windows and MacOS operating systems. For all systems versions, 64bit architecture is provided. The following windows versions are supported:

  • Windows 7

  • Windows 8

  • Windows 10

  • Windows 11

The Communication Creator runs via the Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 21. The distribution for Linux and MacOS require an installed JRE on the system. For Windows, the distribution contains the OpenJRE 21.

Installation

Windows

To install the Communication Creator, extract the provided zip-archive to a directory of your choice. Please ensure that tool has write access to the install directory. There is no further installation required.

You can start the Communication Creator by executing icc.exe.

When you have already created project files you can simply double click them to get them opened automatically in the tool.

It is not recommended to start the tool with elevated privileges e.g. as a system admin.

Linux

To install the Communication Creator, extract the provided zip archive to a directory of your choice. Please ensure that tool has write access to this directory.

The zip does not include a Java Runtime Environment, so an installed JRE 21 or newer is required.

For displaying the help pages within the tool, please ensure to install the WebKit2GTK package on your linux distribution. For example on Ubuntu the command looks like:

sudo apt install webkit2gtk-driver

Furthermore, the ICC requires the enabling of the execution bit by running the following commands on the command line:

  • cd <yourInstallDirectory>

  • sudo chmod +x icc

You can start the Communication Creator by executing icc.

 

License

When running the Communication Creator after Linux or Windows installation, it will start in demo mode. Depending on the tool type, some limitations apply.

To get the full functionality, you have to install the license files which can be purchased from port. Please contact service@port.de for further information. To install the license, copy the two files license.dat and license.sig received from port to the directory where you extracted the Communication Creator archive. Then restart the tool. It will now provide the full functionality for your purchased feature

The last license files from the deprecated CANopen and EtherCAT Designtools are accepted for their feature, too. They are single .dat files.

You can change the path from where the Communication Creator looks for the licenses via the menu: Window > Preferences.