DQMH Consortium Toolkits Feature Requests

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).

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:

Reviewing somebody's DQMH code I noticed an error generated in the exit case where they had cleanup code (1) was not captured by the Tester. This is purely because the exit case causes the MHL to terminate (2), so the normal error handling strategy (3) doesn't work (enqueuing another job called Error). Can I propose, unless there's a better technique, that adding the "Error Report" broadcast at the end of the Exit case (4) is a simple way to ensure any errors generated here get reported.

Add Error Broadcast in MHL Exit Case

Hi, I would suggest adding a boolean called 'Include Dependencies' to the function on the scripting API to search for DQMH modules on the project, sometimes we have projects and we call DQMH Modules not listed on the project itself, but the developer should be aware we are calling those DQMH modules under dependencies, the Panther Dashboard for DQMH already is searching for DQMH modules under dependencies but it would be great if the native function does this functionality, also, I suggest adding a boolean array output to know if the resulting modules are located under dependencies or they are in the project.

This is how I visualize the connector pane of the 'Get DQMH Modules in Project.vi'

Thank you!.

Lately I've been running into lots of code that looks like this:

I just need to start a module, call a request (and wait for reply, usually), then stop the module. I think it would be convenient if the module templates included a 'Start and Sync Module' VI that wrapped the Start Module.vi and Synchronize Module Events.vi. This is for the use case where you won't be needing to register for any of the module's broadcasts.

As DQMH module templates become more widely used, it would be very nice if, when adding a new DQMH module that was added as a custom template, the overlay pre-populated with the overlay that the template uses.

So maybe thinking about this on a lower level, this feature request comes in two parts. When saving a DQMH module as a template, store the metadata that makes up the current overlay in a config file somewhere. Then, on the Add New DQMH Module window, whenever a custom Module Type is selected, pre-populate the overlay with that metadata.

When opening a DQMH module .lvlib file directly, the LabVIEW IDE allows to call the DQMH Scripting Tools from the Tools menu, which results in an error message when trying to parse the project for modules:

This error should be handled the same way as when calling the DQMH Scripting Tools from a single VI (or even the getting started window):

When NI released VI Analyzer 2018, they included a feature to ignore VI Analyzer test failures for specific objects and VIs through the use of #via_ignore bookmarks:

I would like similar functionality for ignoring DQMH Validate Module failures. I propose that if a VI contains a #dqmh_validate_ignore bookmark anywhere on its diagram, then that VI will not return a failure for any DQMH Validate Module test whose name is included in that bookmark's label. Something like this:

Hi,

When creating Request And Reply / Round Trip events, the timeout to get the answer is set as a constant which is global to the module.

It would be nice to personalize this timeout to choose between :

• Module timeout
• Personnalized timeout with a control to enter a value in millisecond

If Module timeout is selected, then module timeout -- constant.vi would be wired to the 'wait for notification' timeout input.
If Personnalized is selected the value set by the user would replace the module timeout -- constant.vi (using a constant instead, or better calling a newly create 'request name' timeout -- constant.vi)

When developing a DQMH Module Template, the meta data XML file that goes along with the module template library defines various aspects of the module. Currently, the only user-configurable parts of the XML file are the module description, and where you want to store the template on disk.

I propose there be more items you can configure for a DQMH Module Template when creating it. My current ideas are:

1. Name of the virtual folder in the target project to place the module tester

2. Name of the virtual folder in the target project to place the module library

3. Alternate path (other than "Libraries") to store the new module library on disk relative to the target project.

For example, I have a DQMH module template for creating a test for my test framework. I want its tester to go in a 'Test Testers' virtual folder in my project, I want its library to go in a 'Test Libraries' virtual folder in my project, and I want the module to be saved in a 'Tests' folder that sits next to my project. It would be nice if all of these things could be not only specified in the UI of the Add New DQMH Module dialog, but default values for each of them could be defined in the module template meta data XML as well.

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.

All DQMH modules come with a Module Timeout--constant.vi:

This value defaults to 5 seconds, but I've worked with many modules over the years (usually having to do with serial devices) where this value is modified. I find it tedious to have to dig into the timeout VI any time I want to find out what the timeout actually is. Especially when I'm working with multiple modules at the same time that may have different (legitimate) timeout values. So I propose the following:

1) The default modules that ship with DQMH should include the timeout value in their icons:

2) There should be a Validate test that ensures the Timeout VI icon displays the correct value, and provide a fixer that will update the icon if it does not.

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.

Everytime I create a new request to a DQMH cloneable module I always end up connecting the Module ID terminal to the new request added to API Tester, please add an additional scripting step to connect this terminal automatically

As mentioned in DQMH Forum: VI Reentrance issue VIs which are required to be non-reentrant are not reported from the DQMH validation tool if they were changed (e.g. to shared clone)

Some of the important VIs which should be reported:

• Obtain Broadcast Events.vi
• Obtain Request Events.vi
• Clone Registration AE.vi
• Start Module (is already reported)
• Basically all used FGV's

Steps to reproduce:

1. Create Project with a new clonable module
2. Change all non-reentrant VIs to shared clone
   

    

3. Run module validation and execute fix
   1. Start Module.vi will be updated and changed
4. Rerun module validation
   1. No issues reported

Problem: 

Currently the DQMH stock requests / broadcasts (eg: Stop module, Hide panel etc) are mixed with the user created requests / broadcasts so if one likes to check which requests, broadcasts etc are in the module he needs to open different subfolders and visually filter out the stock events. 

This is a readability issue which makes it significantly harder to quickly understand (or recall) what events are available for the given module.

Possible solution: 

Instead of mixing the stock DQMH events with the non-stock events create a virtual folder above all the virtual folders called "Module Specific" with subfolders like Requests, Broadcasts, Private and Controls and put everything the user create to there by default.

Big advantage of this of organizing the files this way would be that one could assume that whatever is module specific can be found in the these dedicated folders instead of spreaded somewhat randomly in the virtual folder structure of the module. I said somewhat randomly because the strucure as is currently is hard to read so developers try to make it more readable, everyone on his own way (eg: creating different folders, prefixing the user created events etc). So besides the increased readability of the module by applying this feature there is a very good chance that modules' structure will become more standardized across developers working at different companies.

When adding a new event, I think it would be really nice if the scripting code that adds the new case structure case to the main VI also scans the event description for formatting tags, and then applies them to the new case's subdiagram label. That way the subdiagram label will be formatted exactly the same way as it appears in the VI documentation. For those of us who adhere to the convention of bold facing control names as we mention them when writing VI documentation.

Running the validator on bigger projects takes quite long.

Would it be possible to speed up the process by running the validation of the modules in parallel?

Additionally: Also in CI/CD we know if the module has changed at all. It would be nice if the cli-module-validation could be called with a .lvlib instead of a .lvproj. Therefore, it could be handy to have a VI which lists all dqmh modules in a .lvproj.