Additional NI Software Idea Exchange

Post an idea

Calculated channels template enhancement

For download of updates from ni.com such as the device drivers (http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/3145/lang/en/rating/1 ) NI recommends to use the NI Downloader.

First suggestion: Fine, but the Download tool should download all the relevant files in one operation.

Not as of now where you have to download one NI Download program for each of the (here two) "DVD's" and execute each of them to get both install images downloaded. It is error prone, tedious and requires additional installation instructions.

Second suggestion: Give the user an option to keep the download in one big file. I think it is very few users who actually need the files to fit on a space restricting storage medium. As a note I see from the latest LV2012 downloads that some of the installation distribution files are more than 8GB. 8GB would easily hold the device drivers (as of 2012) so there is actually no need in this particular case to span two media.

ni downloader.png

Hey there,

Versioning is often a fairly important matter when it comes to long/large projects. When a new FPGA bitfile is generated in LabVIEW, there's a possibility to change its version (in the build specification). As a result, a parse of the .lvbitx file as text file can be used to decypher the aforementioned version (it's following the <BuildSpecVersion> tag).

Though, there's no simple way (aside of making a Custom Device or modifying the accepted tags in the xsd file)) to get this information in Veristand after importing a new FPGA personality. The version may be important, but more information about the bitfile might need to be made public in this window :

In fact, there are a bunch of information that are readable in VeriStand about the model imported (name, version...). Once more, the FPGA needs the same feature 😉

Have a great day,

Hello Folks,

As a developer, I use to have several screens for Test data display, Manual panel, Model execution control panel, etc. As per to the operator any screen other than Test data display is unnecessary.

It will be really good, if we could include the Screen selection in the "User Accounts Manager" with respect to the users like shown below

This option lets the administrator to select the specific screens whichever is necessary for the operator.

-SID

View All (1)

MAX

Function to find instruments on a LAN

Hi,

this is an old question, see here, but so far I have not heard about a practical solution. The quest is to find all instruments on a local LAN that are switched ON (and connected to the LAN, of course). Unfortunately, viFindRsrc does not work. Pinging all possible addresses seems not a viable solution due to the required time, either. So it's possible to detect all serial instruments, all instruments connected via GPIB, but until now there is no standalone solution (i.e.without involving NI-MAX) to detect instruments on a local LAN...

Newer instrumentation (such as mass spectrometers..., i.e. no LXI instruments, no NI hardware) usually comes with LAN capabilities (instead of serial or GPIB). While ten years ago I could use viFindRsrc to detect this instrument (then with serial), now I miss a possibility to detect this instrument which is connected to my local LAN.

I have modern hardware but need to configure it manually...this is odd.

There is some software available to detect instruments on a LAN, but I did not want to use an extra program but a simple function call within C (using CVI)...

Thanks,

Wolfgang

PS: I am not sure that the idea label System Configuration API is appropriate, but no better label is available...

View All (1)

Provide the ability to filter log entries by device descriptor, similar to the “View Only this Process” and “View only this Thread” options. The new feature could be implemented with another option in the pop-up menu: “View only this Device”.

Or better yet, a way to selectively pick which of several devices to view. For instance, if 5 devices were present in the log (UD0 - UD4), then I could select to only view UD1 and UD3.

View All (1)

Hello,

I had recently a problem with Max : I got an error when viewing my NI hardware.

MAX was running very slowly ... like when its database is corrupted.

All board autotests were failed !

With the NI FRANCE support, we fixed the problem ! In fact one of the NI low level services was not running !

( NI device loader was not running )

We fixed the problem by changing the restart option of the windows service !

The problem was, that MAX wasn't working properly ... and was showing to me hardware errors !

But it fact there were no hardware problem, only a software issue !

It would be nice if MAX could check the working status of all its required components ( services ... ) !

A message at MAX startup saying "The NI device loader is not running !!! Max will not work properly" would have save us a lot of time !

I think that showing the problem at the launching of MAX is more user friendly that to let MAX hang and show a bad hardware configuration.

Thank you for your help.

View All (1)

Why don't we integrate PuTTY or some version of it into MAX? "Console out" is powerful troubleshooting tool for all NI RT targets and more because it tranfers vital information such as errors and IP address information regardless of whether you can find the device in MAX. It's especially useful for devices that don't have hardware dipswitches. It's a great tool, but is useless without a program like PuTTY. Hence, my suggestion remain to integrate PuTTY or some form of it into MAX.

http://www.cnet.com/1770-5_1-0.html?query=extra+putty&tag=srch

View All (3)

Posted this in Data Acquisition Ideas as well, but it seems like it would be implemented with something like MAX, so...

When dealing with various remotely deployed cRIO hardware configurations, it may be impossible to keep a sample configuration of every type of system we ever sell. Unfortunately, if upgrades or revisions are made to the base code in our system, remotely deploying to our customers becomes impossible unless we have their exact configuration on-hand for the programmers to compile. Remote connection to the hardware for this type of operation is also not typically possible.

To be able to simulate or emulate a full cRIO system (processor & hardware modules), then compile the RT code for deployment on that system as if it is physically connected to our development system would be ideal. This would allow images to be created, which can be sent to customers for local deployment at their facility. Dramatic decrease in "hardware library" requirements on the development end, reduction in "on-site upgrade" service trip costs to the customers. Plus, easier for OEMs like me to justify the move away from PLC types of hardware and towards cRIO, once you take away some of the potentially nightmarish continued support and update issues involved with basing systems on cRIO platforms.

View All (4)

In the present MAX setting for the RT controller we have the option for setting the password to prevent the changes to the settings but it still has to be extended one more layer. If I have set the permissions and logged in and when I try to restart the system MAX should prompt for the password if I have not logged in the password prompt is not required. This will prevent the access of the RT by the other people if the RT is connected to the common server.

Am not sure whether it has been already proposed but it will be better if we have this option.

TWAIN Protocol Support

View All (3)

Hello

This is a very small issue, albeit an annoying one:

When using <F2> to call a rename dialog in MAX, it would be very intuitive to have the focus on the name field, since this is ultimately the field of interest for the user.

Currently, the dialog has no focussed field and pressing <TAB> does not even move focus except to the <Abort> field.

So now, I do not only have to change from keyboard to mouse, but also, I have to mark the entire name in the field to change the name. As I tend to give meaningful names to my channels, this makes for a good many time-consuming "mouse/keyboard/move/click and back" journeys

If the <TAB> key would at least move focus, this would be equally helpful.

Thank you

Michael

Copy and paste task in MAX

View All (2)

View All (3)

Additional NI Software Idea Exchange

Calculated channels template enhancement

VeriStand calculated channels display/sort order

Allow the Ability to Compare I/O Trace Files Side by Side

NI Downloader should download all the relevant files in one operation

Get FPGA bitfile Version in VeriStand Definition File

Workspace Screen Access Restriction for the Operator

MAX

Function to find instruments on a LAN

Show more IO characters in NI I/O Trace Description field

Allow filterable Devices in NI I/O Trace

MAX should view an error if the NI low level services are not running ....

cRIO's have console out, but MAX can't read it. Let's fix that!

Make Measurement & Automation Explorer ( MAX ) Import Assistant Window resizable

Allow simulation/emulation of cRIO hardware for compiling (remote deployment)

Control Reboot of the RT if it is logged in

TWAIN Protocol Support

Improvement for rename channel dialog box in MAX

Copy and paste task in MAX

INI Variables in VBAI not dependent on Ethernet IP toolkit when migrating to LabVIEW

Optical Character Recognition OCR B standard file