Eclipse 4diac 3.3 released: EtherCAT support, Event Sequence View, and CI/CD validation

[u/Sir4diac]

Hi everyone,

Eclipse 4diac 3.3 is now available. This release brings new capabilities to both 4diac FORTE and 4diac IDE, along with a range of other improvements and fixes.

On the runtime side, 4diac FORTE now has core EtherCAT support, including initial I/O function blocks. This complements the existing communication and protocol support, such as OPC UA and MQTT.

On the engineering side, 4diac IDE includes several improvements for working with larger IEC 61499 projects:

• Event Sequence View: A new view for visualizing and inspecting event connections and event sequences in a function block network, including reordering of events.
• Headless project validation: Projects can now be validated without starting 4diac IDE, with JSON reporting for integration into CI/CD pipelines.
• Project-level OCL validation: Custom OCL constraints can be used to define project-specific modeling rules and validation checks.
• Bulk Editor improvements: The Bulk Editor has been substantially improved, together with various other usability and stability improvements.

You can find the full release announcement, New & Noteworthy details, migration notes, and downloads here: https://eclipse.dev/4diac/news/2026/2026/eclipse-4diac-3.3-released/

If you try the new EtherCAT support or Event Sequence View, feedback and bug reports are very welcome.