Find in Project

What it does

Find in Project is a per-block where-used surface. Pick a block in the Project Explorer and run Find References; the application fetches every cross-reference Siemens TIA Portal knows about that block across the open project and shows them in the TIA References view. Results are grouped by relationship — Used by · callers, Uses · callees, Reads, and Writes — with an access badge and the exact reference location for each hit.

Use it to answer questions like:

• "Where is FB_Motor called from?"
• "Which blocks does FB_Motor call?"
• "Which tags does FB_Motor read or write?"

How to open it

Either trigger resolves the block and its parent PLC, opens the TIA References view in the TIA Portal side bar, and fetches that block's cross-references. This is an exact per-block where-used lookup — not a substring name search.

From the editor

You can also run the same where-used lookup from inside an open block. In the code, right-click a block name and choose Go to References (or press Shift+F12) to list everywhere that block is used across the project, right in the editor's references peek. Done this way on an instance data block (such as idb_Motor), the list also points to the function block the instance is based on — so you can jump straight to the block's logic.

Reading the results

Results appear as a grouped tree:

FB_MotorCtrl  (FB)
▾ Used by · callers (3)
     OB1            Cyclic / Network 3
     FC_Line        Network 7
▾ Uses · callees (2)
     FB_Valve
▾ Reads (1)
     db_Recipe.Speed   R   DB / Network 2
▾ Writes (2)
     db_State.MotorRun   W   DB / Network 5

• Each row shows the referenced or referencing object name, an access badge (R / W / RW / Call), and the reference location.
• Empty groups are hidden. When a block has no references at all, a "No references found for …" hint is shown.
• Click a row (or press Enter) to open the target as a read-only block editor. For a caller, the call line is revealed; callees, reads, and writes open the target block. Operands that are not openable blocks (raw I/O, bracketed array access) show a "cannot be opened directly" notification instead.

View actions

The TIA References view title has two actions:

• Refresh — re-runs the lookup for the last block.
• Clear — clears the results and returns to the empty hint.

Requirements

Cross-references are only reliable on TIA Portal V18 and later. On V15–V17 the view reports that Find References requires TIA Portal V18 or later.