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Make LabVIEW a web based application

Using Google Apps and similar products I've come to really love the access I get to all that functionality regardsless of which computer I'm on. Imagine how great it would be if you could have LabVIEW available in the same way!

All the work, your VI libs, the compilation etc. would be on the hosting server (sharing VI libs, source code control and collaboration in general could be made very flexible indeed). There would be a few challenges to overcome, e.g. when you are writing code for different targets, but nothing unsolvable I think...(if there are any show stoppers we could have both...a web based editor as well as the traditional solution).

And the host could offer you to work in previous versions of LabVIEW...and new versions would be available as soon as they are launched, and you could build apps for different operative systems in one go.... no volume license manager headaches...the list of possibilities and improvements is endless

Missing Software Pop Up

Hello LabVIEW Experts,

I thought of this recently when I was setting up a test computer. I started up my LabVIEW project file and opened up my host VI only to find that I had some broken wires... DOH! After looking over MAX and googling a few error codes, I found that the test machine I had didn't have RT installed. That's when it hit me, wouldn't it be great if the VI would have recognized that I was trying to connect to a cRIO chassis and gave me a little pop up telling me what software I was missing and where to get it? Sure would have made my day easier.

I just bought a new laptop, spent time installing all my non-NI software. I set up backup and created a system restore point just prior to the NI installation.

I then installed the 2011 DS2 developer kit, with almost all the products. Something went wrong with the installation. Nothing is useable, and when I try to uninstall/repair the software windows reports that it is no longer installed and asks me if I want to remove the link.

I tried installing again from the DVD. This starts and then just quits, no error message.

I tried the MSI Cleaner; this has been replaced with MS Fixit, which might work, but I would have to run it INDIVIDUALLY on each NI product.

Fine. Time to go to my restore point. BUT WAIT! What's this?!!!

All of my restore points are from the Drivers installation. Roughly 50 points, 8GB, all from the same 15 minute period when I installed the drivers. It blew away my last good restore.

This is not right. There should be ONE restore point created when you start the install, and maybe another after it's done. Clearly labeled. The current behavior is USELESS.

If this cannot be avoided, you should prompt the user to turn off SR for the duration of the installation (unless that also deletes the restore points).

I called for support and was told to reinstall the OS. I had meant to do a drive image before the NI install, but thought the Restore Point would be good enough.

Thankfully this is a brand new installation, so I don't have to deal with getting anything off of it first.

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Applications Builder

I think the application builder should be able to generate a standalone applicationwithout the need to install the LabVIEW runtime engine, to reduce the user to install anduse the program to do the steps are too complicated or complex to install, or can becalled "hidden install" or "incidental installation", and will install all the files are placed in a program (such as VIPM installer). Best to install the non-LabVIEW files (like DOCdocuments, pictures, msi installation package, etc.).

Please can the installer be changed to stop using removable drives as a temporary location for installation files. I had a 2TB drive attached when I started the install and "safely removed" it part way through. The install then failed

I assume it uses the largest attached drive available. If possible could it check for the fastest drive instead. My main drive is an SSD with an HDD as the secondary drive which is larger. The SSD would have been the best choice in this instance.

Scan for installers

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LabVIEW LE..

I recently retired from my job as an electronics engineer. Prior to leaving I had been using LabVIEW to create a number of scientific instruments based on data collection and logging. I attended a couple of training courses in Newbury and was getting quite comfortable with the software. Unfortunately I no longer have access to LV and the educational discount option available from the company no longer applies for me.

However just because I have retired does not mean that I do not want to generate more projects using the knowledge gained during employment. My main area of interest is home automation, alt energy monitoring and control etc. I am finding it very frustrating that things I could do quickly and easily in LV have to be achieved using other software, this means yet another learning curve.

I downloaded SignalExpress LE a while back and was hoping that the software may go just a bit beyond data logging but it does not. There is no way to manipulate data in real time so again I have to look for other software.

The full version of LV is priced too high for my application and it occurred to me that there may be an opportunity for NI to provide a stripped down version of LV for consumer use. This version would need to include vesa, basic arrays, basic math, boolean and charting etc. The inclusion of drivers for 1 wire devices would also increase the appeal plus ready made vi's for the usb acquisition hardware. Pricing may be an issue but for non-commercial use it would have to be well below £100

Incidently I was contacted by customer support shortly after downloading SE LE and it was during our conversation he suggested that a post on this site may be appropriate.

Choose which version to develop.

There should be an option to choose which version of LabVIEW want to

build your application, so would only be loading the vi's corresponding to avoid

version compatibility problems.

Further updates NI LabVIEW should create, so each developer would install

the latest version and any patches that were wanted to use.

If I owned the LabVIEW 2010 and would want to work with 8.6 would install

a patch for this version and not like today having to install the LabVIEW 8.6 whole

The right side of LabVIEW Getting Started window presents links to resources can help the LabVIEW user to be successful in its application development.

With LabVIEW2009 links that update dynamically has been added under Latest from ni.com. I found very useful to be updated on LabVIEW News directly from the Getting Started window but I would like to see the news published by the local branch.

If the link is localized, I can be updated on new events organized in my Country, on new products release and announcements written in my native language.

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Installer enhancement

LabVIEW Projects can use an icon in the exe, but not when running in development, and not in the built installer.

Add to the LabVIEW project to have a property to set a project icon. With the Project icon, when running in development mode, it can use that icon instead of the standard LabVIEW one. Extremely useful when trying to give demos, screen shots to send to customers and building an exe is not working, feasible or designing on the fly. There is a hack you can do using the shell32.dll that on open of any LabVIEW panel, it can rewrite the icon, but then code must be added for any and every panel to show the icon. Also if the window name changes, you have to call the same code again.

The installer also does not inherit the icon from the executable being installed. Add an option to add an icon to the installer and have it embedded in the setup.exe. Also include the registry setting for DisplayIcon = Icon path to exe or to defined icon. I've currently been able to change the setup.exe icon using the Resource Tuner application (www.heaventools.com for $50). It's as simple as changing the IconGroup 128 with your own icon and save the exe. This embeds the icon to show up in Windows Explorer and as the icon when running the installer.

The wrinkle is that the installer does not have any pointer in the Add/Remove list for Windows for the icon. You have to know the ProductID and ProductCode which changes every time you build the installer, as it is in the setup.ini file at the bottom. Going to the 32bit or 64bit registry (depending on what you are installing), you have to add a new string key "DisplayIcon" and it can point to any icon file or the exe using the path.exe,0 to represent what icon to use. The path to the reg key is somthing like HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\{E851D69F-49EE-4B9C-BAE7-58AB782E801A}\DisplayIcon. I'm currently developing an exe to run after the installation to set the registry key properly. It takes command line arguments for the Product Name (search registry for the GUID), path to icon/exe to set. This way each installer uses the same executable (LabVIEW built) to set the icon in the add/remove list properly.

Hello,

I work as a LabVIEW integrator and for one of my customer I develop application, with maintenance goal for their installation all over the world with RS232 or Bluetooth communication for example, deployed on targets as PDA (PocketPC 2003 & Windows Mobile 6) or Touch Panel (Windows CE 4.2 to 5.0) using LabVIEW 8.6 Mobile Module.

This LabVIEW additonal module works quite well to deploy the same application in this differant targets, but I encountered some problems and I have some suggestions for Mobile Module :

1/ MMI (Man Machine Interface)

- for graphics indicators (as Gauge or Slide) graphical object ramp or multi Slider is deleted by LabVIEW when you build an EXE => I think that a graphical objets with all its graphical property could be added in Mobile Module (and works on these all targets). See examples in GraphicalObjects.PNG

- as I say in my introduction my application is deployed all over the world and usually I used "Caption" dynamic modification for multilingual management for all my controls & indicators. But in mobile module we can't do this (but we can modify dynamically boolean text), so I think that it could be possible.

2/ VISA (& Bluetooth) Management

- I think there is a bug with VISA installation. Indeed with the installer you can choose the installation directory (default directory or specific directory : in non volatil memory) but if you don't install VISA support in default directory it doesn't work (with PocketPC 2003 for example) I think that could be resolved

- As I said in introduction my application could communicate throught different protocols (RS232, Bluetooth) and with LV 8.6 Mobile Module we can now use VISA : great !!!. But in Windows Mobile 6, VISA does not support bluetooth (it seems to have an incompatibility with virtual aliases in the registry) ; and in PocketPC2003 it works very well. I think that could be resolved

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To be honest, I am not entirely sure what that means. Only that my IT department says NI downloads do not have a valid signature and the firewall blocks them. Currently we are working through this "http://www.ni.com/white-paper/12402/en/" , but I am not convinced the answer is there for us. I am able to download files from any website that I currently use here at work so I don't understand why NI downloads would have a problem. By the way, this is using the NI downloader or using manual download, neither method works. Using other browsers yeilds nothing either. Cruising the internet for similar problems came up with "Software Publisher’s Digital Certificate", is it possible NI's isn't valid or something?

Anyway, seeing as how internet security is just going to get tighter and firewalls more strict, I don't want hokey solution that will just break with another update. Anybody got an answer for this delima?

Robert

Right now, we can build an installer which embeds other installers (e.g. the LVRTE). So we can distribute the installer and allow our customers to install everything they need using one installer. This is great. But I find that it sometimes disturbs my customers when they see that my application is also installing other things (i.e. LVRTE, DAQmx, etc). They are curious about the "3rd Party Components". I totally understand this. When I download an installer, and see things like "Click here to also install Google Chrome" or Google Earth or some other spyware garbage, I am immediately suspicious. Or worse, when I am not even warned about. Bundling other installers is a common way to spread adware.

Problem:

- Bundling third party componenets into an installer is suspicious to many users.

- Bunlding extra installers also makes the un-intall process more complex (you have to uninstall things the extra stuff in a different step).

- Current method of bundling extra installers does not inform the user about all of the components being installed

So my suggestion: Allow these components to be bundled (i.e. hidden) in the application directory. I believe this is already possible with other run-time engines like the Java Runtime Engime. And I see that something similar is possible with LabWindows/CVI (see here), though I have never used LabWindows.

I guess another way to do this is just to somehow hide the extra stuff from the user. Do a silent install of all the 3rd party componenets. But I feel like that is a bit devious, and might piss off some customers.

Create two versions of the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine - 1 with dependencies (vi.lib, etc.) and 1 without dependencies. If a LabVIEW Run-Time Engine with dependencies were to be created, it would allow you to bypass the TestStand Deployment Utility when deploying test software created using TestStand. It would also simplify Application Builder because any native dependencies (code shipping with LabVIEW) wouldn't have to be packaged with a LabVIEW executable (only the user-created dependencies).

If maintaining two versions of the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine isn't acceptable, it would be nice to just include the dependencies in the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine. Disk space and broadband Internet connections have almost virtually eliminated the necessity for a LabVIEW Run-Time Engine with a small disk or installer footprint, particulalry when NI hardwire driver installers take up 100s or even 1000s of MB on disk.

include ADCS in Developer Suite

Current versions of Developer suite do not include Autmotive Diagnostic Command Set
in the DVD's for installation onto a host PC, the toolkit has to be downloaded separately which can be difficult to find as it is not referenced on the support pages, for those interested the 1.1.1 release is here:

ADCS 1.1.1

URL:http://joule.ni.com/nidu/cds/view/p/id/3153/lang/en

My thought is that this should become more integrated into the release DVD's as it is a Labview add-on and should be treated the same as all the others.

When developing an unattended installation, creation of the specfile allows customized installation choices.

Due to the number of choices, I have rerun 2013DS1DVD1_ENG\setup.exe /generatespecfile more than once and NI Device Drivers DVD - February 2013\setup.exe several times to add or remove one or two options.

Adding the capability of loading a specfile when launching setup with /generatespecfile filename1 /loadspecfile filename2 would allow the easy editing/modification of the specfile by the installation creator reducing the time necessary to make a custom automated installation of the NI software.

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I know that we finally have the Version Conversion board to handle all the "convert this to that" requests that people used to post. Related ideas that have been suggested include 1) a webservice to convert VIs automatically and 2) a specific LabVIEW utility to do the conversion for you.

What I suggest is something a little different and maybe simpler for NI to create. I would like the ability to open a higher version, non-functional VI with the following options:

The ability to see the GUI and block diagram of the VI (maybe as just image files if NI can't handle it otherwise).
A dialog box (or something like that) that gives a summary reason why the VI won't run in your version of LV.
Question mark icons where offending subVIs reside in the block diagram.

I think this would be useful because it would at least let you see how the VI functioned - sometimes that's enough to help you figure out a problem.

LabVIEW Idea Exchange

Make LabVIEW a web based application

Missing Software Pop Up

Change the way that the Software Installation Creates Restore Points!

Install driver DVD drive other than c:

Applications Builder

Stop using removable drives as a temporary location for installation

Scan for installers

LabVIEW LE..

Choose which version to develop.

LabVIEW News Localized for my Country

Installer for Labview Web server browser ... light Labview Web client installer

Installer enhancement

Mobile Module MMI & VISA (Bluetooth) Management

Include Valid Signatures with File Downloads

Allow installer to embed the LVRTE into the application directory

Create Another Version of the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine That Contains All Dependencies (vi.lib, etc).

include ADCS in Developer Suite

Unattended installation - specfile edit/modification support

Ability to view newer/older VIs without converting their version

Error constant ring should be converted to code when saving in previous version