DQMH Consortium Toolkits Feature Requests

When the DQMH Consortium introduced the support for private requests with DQMH 7.0, a conscious decision was made not to support synchronous requests with reply, to avoid dead-lock scenarios.

With the way we at HSE start additional DQMH modules from any given DQMH module (by sending a request from the MHL to the EHL to start and register for modules, then reply back to the calling MHL case, so the whole process becomes synchronous), it would be super helpful if we could script those private "start submodule" requests the exact same way as all other private requests.

TL;DR: Add support for private Request and Wait for Reply.

Edit: After internal discussion, let me add that I know how to make a regular request a private one by setting the access scope. I don’t want to do that - I want the private Request with Reply to be the same as all other private events, and not a modified public request.

Edit2: If you scroll down, you'll see that Manu added a vital piece of information. We usually communicate with one of the EHLs/Helper Loops, not the MHL. So scripting should not create another case in the MHL but keep the reply in the targeted EHL/Helper Loop.

When creating a new Event, it would be empowering to be able to automatically call a VI immediately after the scripting completes. The idea is based on the behavior of the Pre- and Post-Build VI calling ability of the application build process. The implementation should provide an option to specify a VI to call and an option to generate a VI with the proper controls already on the connector pane. A proposed set of such controls would be VI references or paths to the Event VI or VIs (Broadcast or Request... or both for Round Trip) and VI references or paths to the Tester VI and RT Tester VI (if there is one).

Adding the feature would allow developers using DQMH to create their own extensions to the built-in scripting. For example, if the other feature request here is not accepted, this one would allow a developer to implement it on our own.

Today DQMH scripters add comments with specific hashtags. But some of these hashtags names are very generic (for example #CodeNeeded or #CodeRecommended).

Adding a 'DQMH_' prefix would allow a better isolation of DQMH related hashtags in the bookmark manager (ie. #DQMH_CodeNeeded).

Actually some DQMH tags already have this prefix (#DQMH_HowTo).

For some reason I need to know the module name of the module that I start.

Module name constant is a private VI and therefore cannot be called in a cller VI diagram.

Having the Start Module VI returning this information could be useful (instead of specifically creating a R&R just for this purpose).

For DQMH modules written prior to DQMH 7, helper loops will unlikely have the "DQMH_HELPER_LOOP_NAME" string constant wired to the error helper VI as shown below.

This idea is to propose a new test be added to DQMH Validate Module to check that all helper loops have this string constant present.

Today when creating adding a module template it is not possible to set a 'human readable' name for template.

The template name is the module's library name. Having a field to specify a more friendly name could be useful (could be set by default withe the module's library name though).

Credit goes to doyles for initially coming up with this idea.

Go here for previous discussions:

https://forums.ni.com/t5/Delacor-Toolkits-Discussions/Feature-request-Automate-the-Helper-Loop-creat...

1. Include a "checkbox" onto the Add New DQMH Module dialog panel that is labelled "Include a Helper Loop"
   
    

   

    

2. If the user checks this checkbox, a helper loop is automatically added to the Main.vi
3. The helper loop would not be a sub-VI, but simply a third loop on the main.vi block diagram.
4. A Wake up Helper Loop request is automatically created and included in a Private Requests virtual folder
5. Make the helper loop generic as per Sam's suggestion. My suggestion is to have three user events: 1) Timeout 2) <Stop Module> 3) <Wakeup Helper Loop>
6. Label the additional "Register for Events" node something different from the other "Register for Events" node, ie. DQMH_REG_EVENTS_HELPER_LOOP (so that the Validate tool does not raise it as an issue)
7. When generating a helper loop for new cloneable modules, ensure that in the "Wakeup Helper Loop" and "Stop Module" user events, that the Addressed to this Module.vi is used.

When creating a new event for a module and my project contains numerous modules, finding the correct module in the list can be somehow painfull.

Listing the DQMH modules in alphabetic order would help finding the correct module faster.

I am aware of the note that is being shown on the "Remove DQMH Event" that states: 

" NOTE 2: You cannot remove the last private event from a DQMH module. Once a private request has been created, the module requires at least one private event to be present." 

The request i believe would come in handy, is that instead of "hiding" or "not showing" the one and only private request, to instead show it as available for deletion, and when pressing OK, populate the information on a popup that shows what NOTE 2 said. 

This with the objective of not giving the user the notion that DQMH scripting tools are broken, especially the ones just beginning to use DQMH.

The problem I want to fix:

I want to be able to try to fix or poke the code more when an error occurs in the API Tester. The opportunity of going to the block diagram or attempting to send a different request goes away because the API Tester, by default, closes when an error occurs.

How I propose fixing it:

The first thing that I change on an API Tester at the first error is to remove the OR connected to the stop terminal in the loop and add an error indicator at the end instead of the Simple Error Handler and connect a local variable for the error. Would you please vote to have DQMH do this by default and have a validator to modify existing API Testers?

Current API Tester:

Proposed change:

Thanks,

Fab (yes, being the DQMH Lead Architect does not guarantee that all my wishes are turned into reality 😉 )

When you create a new cloneable module from the default Cloneable, it creates the new module which includes the following automatically created libraries:

 1) VI Reference Management

 2) Clone Registration

However these libraries do not have a description.  Could we please add a description to these for the next DQMH release?

Main reason for this request: We have an inhouse tool that finds all libraries/classes/VIs/ctls that do not have a description and then allows the user to edit these in one place. These two libraries keep showing up in the list for each DQMH module.

Today most of our screens support a 1920x1080 resolution.

And the actual space that I can basically use in the MHL is 530x315 pixels (roughly, surface of the MHL minus subdiagram comment).

Which means that my useful coding surface is only 30% of my screen resolution.

I guess the EHL and MHL can be designed wider so that we have more space for our custom code.

This feature request is adding to the already existing "Private Request" and "Helper Loop Creation" requests (or not?):

When working with helper loops in cloneable modules, it would be nice to have a way for sending messages from the MHL to the helper loop which doesn't need the module ID, and which doesn't interfere with other clones' helper loop timings. I'd still like this new mechanism to look and feel like the regular events, with all the scripting and other goodness.

Maybe instead of calling them private events, a better name would be "local" events (which would, of course, be set to private scope).

When validating a number of modules and going through the list of fixes, it's sometimes hard to keep track of what has already been fixed.

It would be nice to have some information on which failures were already fixed, and whether the fix was applied successfully or if there were errors or if there's a need for manual work.

I just put some icons into the screenshot to illustrate my idea - my feature request asks for a prettier implementation 😉

In many cases I launch the cloneable instance(s) and launch the API tester on demand. In this case the API tester doesnt show if any instances are already running, I need to press the refresh button which I forgot in most of the cases. Other developer not that familiar with DQMH forgot it all the time causing confusion.

I have fixed this in the template module we use for cloneables:

Please add a test to the Validate Module tool:

Find all while loops in the Main.vi of the specified module(s), and check if the DQMH Error Handler - Helper loop.vi is used to handle errors in each of the while loops, and flag it if not.  Ignore the default EHL and MHL in this check.