Additional NI Software Idea Exchange

1. Es ist nicht leicht herauszufinden, welche Rechner gerade eine netzexterne Lizenz haben. Die einzige Möglichkeit ist, unter Computer in der Spalte „Ablauf der netzexternen Lizenz“ ein Datum einzugeben. Leider findet man da erst mal überhaupt nichts. Dann muss man rechts unten „Filter bearbeiten“ anklicken und hier ein zweites Datum eingeben. Das nenne ich „selbsterklärend“ L Probieren Sie bitte auch mal das Eingeben eines anderen Datums: warum muss ich da 2x klicken, bis der Kalender erscheint?
2. Möchte man also einen PC neu anlegen, um eine netzexterne Lizenz zu verlängern, muss ich den Namen und die Nummer neu eingeben. Also mache ich einen Screenshot, bevor ich den bisherigen lösche oder schreibe mir die Nummer ab. Beides hat die Problematik, dass Name und Nummer wegen der Kursivschrift sehr schlecht lesbar sind. Mein erster Versuch, eine neue netzexterne Lizenz zu erzeugen scheiterte also schon mal an einem Lesefehler (versuchen Sie mal eine 8 von einem B zu unterscheiden)!! Und das bei einem PC, der sich gerade nicht auf dem Firmengelände befindet. Das ist sehr lästig und aufwendig und für NI doch super leicht zu ändern.
3. Da wäre es gleich besser, wenn man eine Möglichkeit hätte, die netzexterne Lizenz zu verlängern, ohne den PC löschen zu müssen …
4. Die Filterphilosophie habe ich noch nie verstanden: Der VLM merkt sich z.B. beim Suchen eines PC immer die letzte Suche. Wenn man die Software neu startet und bei „Computer“ in die Spalte „Computername“ z.B. 34 eingibt (weil ich weiß, dass mein gesuchter PC diese Nummer im Namen hat), dann finde ich ihn nicht. Erst ein Blick auf die Statuszeile ganz unten offenbart, dass vom letzten Benutzen der Software noch der damalige Filter zusätzlich drin steht und mit UND verknüpft ist. Warum lenkt mich dann das Suchfeld oben nicht gleich auf die Maske, wo ich ALLE Filter sehe und ändern kann. Aber ehrlich gesagt, ist das auch keine Lösung, denn es ist völlig unnötig, sich den Filter von damals zu merken. Ich habe heute noch nie eine Suchanfrage von gestern benötig.
5. Wenn Sie PCs in Gruppen haben, dann sehen Sie beim Aufklappen der Gruppe mit dem „+“-Zeichen nur die Computernamen. Dabei ist die Zeile soooo lang, dass die Anzeige weiteres Metadaten nicht nur möglich, sondern auch sehr sinnvoll wäre. Das gilt auch für das Aufklappen beim Bereich Lizenzen.
6. Zudem habe ich mir das Aufklappen von Infos mit dem „+“ schon abgewöhnt, weil es wenig Info bietet und wenn ich dann etwas daran ändern möchte mit der Aufklappliste nichts bearbeiten kann. Also klicke ich gleich doppelt auf die Gruppe oder die Lizenzüberschrift

This is a bit of a feature request for the service request manager and/or as a stand-alone (my NI web) tool!  

It is needed because the NI webpage makes it terribly hard to search for CAR#'s and a CAR# is only listed when solved, and only listed for the one version where it was resolved, making it nigh-on impossible to check lists of (new) CAR#s and get notified when they are resolved.

For example, I know this CAR exists, but I'm not sure if it has been resolved and the NI search just didn't find it, or if does not exist (user input error for example) or anything..

1. The tool should reside on "my NI" but it should be possible to export/share the list of monitored CAR's (so colleageus/companies can maintain one master list of company relevant CAR's).
2. The tool should connect/check against NI (ideally directly to a back-end database) and return any "public" information related to a CAR, such as "in progress", "known work-around", "details" etc. along with driver/software version where it was resolved (if any).
3. The tool should present a clear list (ideally with green checkmarks / red cross icons) showing the status of each CAR and maybe a synopsis/one-liner from the description to indicate what problem the number is for.
4. wish-list added feature:  allow (on a per user basis) the user to add personal notes to a CAR (e.g. this affects projects x, y and z, once resolved, refactor those projects to remove performance intensive work-arounds!) or similar.
5. e-mail notification (optional/configurable) when the status changes on any of the tracked CAR's.

As far as how it relates to the service request manager, I would prefer a separate tool but that it also can link to the service request manager as outlined below:

A small but significant number of tickets either relate to, or create one or more CAR#'s (or at least mine seem to create a large amount of CAR's).

When a support tech adds / associates a ticket# with a CAR#, ideally this CAR# would be automatically added to the user's CAR Tracking list..

In addition it would be great if the back-end database tracked CAR#'s and offered up a list of these numbers in the webpage overview, for example next to the "status" column. Taking it a step further, it would be very nice if NI could make it simpler to check if a CAR has been resolved and if so, what version of LabVIEW it was resolved in/with. This information could be displayed in the same web page table, or a new page to itself. The "Status" column could then also be expanded with a green check-mark if (all) associated CAR#'s have been resolved..

Tracking CAR's and manually trying to search and check them off lists locally is labor intensive, especially since the web-page "search" does not do even a passable job when you enter CAR numbers.

Hello,

I got a cDAQ 9184 connected to a PC running Vision Builder. The IO-Channels on the 9184 are connected via global virtual DAQmx channels. These channels are available on Vision Builder.

When power is cycled on the 9184, Vision Builder does not reconnect to it. You have to close and restart Vision Builder to get it running again.

My Wish is that Vision Builder is able to reconnect automatically.

Best regards,

Klaus

We are doing testing of our complex Logic devices (CPLDs and FPGAs).

With this effort we are finding from the FPGA designers, that to cover testing requirements for the CPLD we need to generate 100’s of code files that validate all the test cases per our requirements.

The designers then creates 100s of VCD files from ModelSIM that Test Engineering then has to convert to HWS files using the digital Waveform Editor 3.0 in order to run on the HSDIO cards.

Since the effort is currently manual, we were looking to automate the importing tools from DWE 3.0.

as my project grows the amount of files to test wil grow to 1000's of files. Automation of the import and export wizard would help substantially.

However, Digital Waveform Editor 3.0 does not support scripting or provide LabVIEW APIs to do so.

We are currently looking at a Windows scripting engine to do this by mouse clicks but would prefer a LabVIEW API implementation to control this operation.

It would be great to create APIs that can script the import and export functions of the DWE 3.0

I see that the .LLB libraries are there in the DWE directory but no documentation to use for scripting. I believe this is possible to script but not without a lot of trial and error on my part.

Is NI looking into creating APIs with hooks into Digital Waveform Editor (DWE) for scripting conversions from VDC files to HWS files?

This is my thoughts on the API from the Import Export wizard.

API functions:

Import File

<ctl>VCD or ASCII (enum)

Import Wizard Select Signals

<ctl> Array of Signal Names

<indicator> Array of selected Signal Names

Import Wizard set Signal Name Type

Drive, Compare, or Bidirectional (Enum)

<ctl> Array of Signal Names

Import Wizard Sample Method - On Edge of VDC signal

Select Sampling Method

Select VCD Signal

Sample on: Rising Edge, Falling Edge, Both Edges (Enum)

Delay After Rising Edge (sec)

Import Wizard Sample Method - Fixed timebase or Rate

Cycle Time for Sampling (sec)

Sampling Start Position (sec)

Frequency (Hz)

Retrieve from File (T:F)

File Path (path)

Export File

Save As: HWS or ASCII or Binary (enum)

I write C# code and I tend to write wrapper classes and methods like: DmmHelper.MeasureDcVoltage( DmmRange range  = DmmRange.TenVolt, DmmDigits digits = DmmDigits.FiveAndHalf): double 

This routine instantiates, configures, measures and disposes the DMM instrument.  That way I can load Test Panels at breakpoints debugging.   DAQs are handled with a using {} statement,  the inputs or output are valid only within the brackets otherwise the instrument is shutdown and outputs go to 0. 

 I write unit tests to test my code.   It would be nice to use a simulated instrument that I could programmatically configure so that it would measure values that I programmatically inject:  Data like:  DC voltages, current.  AC voltages and current,  Digitized voltage or current waveforms,  and Resistance etc.   I inject the data and when I get measurement the simulated instrument returns the data.  The simulation seems to extremely simple stuff but I have not found a good programmatic interface that supports the entire capability of the PXI instrument (Dmm, DAQ, switch matrix, power supply etc.)

Either that or I need to be able to derive my own simulated instrument.

As seen here The tools network does not offer a means to filter downloads by highest product version actually installed

Perhaps some nice filters so VIPM Tools Network View can automagically find these for us too?  That would be sweet!

[Edited on 8/28/2014 by moderator Diego Carvajal (dcarvaja)] [Image included in original post as requested] To help debug medium and large real-time test sequences, it would be very useful if there was a sequence step that allowed the user to specify a console message.

Much like the Print Debug String VI helps debug issues when building custom devices, this step would allow the developer to insert specific console flags and see what part of his/her real-time sequence is executing.