Will NI Spy ever support Command Line options or have an API?

[kcoggins]

Will NI Spy ever support Command Line options or have an API?

It would be useful to programmatically control NI Spy (start and stop capture), and redirect the output to a console inside an application.  Is NI open to ever expanding NI Spy's capabilties in such a way?

[Albert.Geven]

I second that question immediately

[smercurio_fc]

I'm sure NI is open to consider all suggestions from their customers. You should submit a suggestion in the Product Suggestion Center.

In the meantime, you may want to consider using a third-party automation tool, such as AutoIt. This is fairly easy to use and has an ActiveX interface, so you can program NI-SPY operations by using AutoIt as a go-between.

[kcoggins]

I took your advice and submitted a suggestion at NI's Product Suggestion Center.

[Gavin F]

Hi all,

We've been thinking about programmatic access to NI Spy, but don't have specific plans for it.  Your input would be helpful.
We would like to know what your use cases are for an NI Spy API.
What kinds of features would be helpful in those use cases?

[kcoggins]

It would probably motivate NI to incorporate such a feature if more users would show an interest.  Please post the ways you would use such a feature on this discussion list.  Thanks!

[instrumento]

Second that.  Have NI Spy start/stop programmatically and write to more places than a file, e.g. a queue.

[Song_D · Accepted solution]

The latest version of Spy, 2.7, contains a LabVIEW API that allows you to start and stop captures. You may get it by installing VISA 4.6.

[instrumento]

That is nice.  Where are the VIs to control it that are referenced on the online help, and are they LV 8+ only?

[Jeremy_L]

If you haven't found them yet, they are under Measurement I/O >> NI Spy.  The LabVIEW API is supported on versions 8.5 and above.