LabVIEW Idea Exchange

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We have the ability to create a "Component Definition" when we build a Real Time application. This is useful for pushing an application to several identical systems, as long as that system is sitting on your desk (or at least on the same network). This is great to be able to ensure you get all the same/correct driver and needed modules on to the systems.

But what if you need to update a deployed RT system? If you're just updating the application, it's fairly easy. I have tools to take care of that and make it painless for the customer to do it themselves. If you need to update the operating system, it's a completely different task.

Since we can create this component definition, why can't we go one step futhure and create a complete system image (application, OS, drivers, everything...) from that definition? This system image could then be imaged to the RT system using the system configuration API.

Base and Full Evaluation Package

Bit Bit windows detection

It's almost 2014, time to make a state-of-art installer.

I think LabVIEW absolutely needs these features:

create a multi-language installer

make the dialogs translatable, or provide translated dialogs. This work can be done by the community in some weeks.

ability to create a 1 language installer, or multi-language installer (selecting which languages to incorporate).

The bootstrap installer will check the windows language and will load the appropriate strings for the dialogs. If the language is not present, english fallback.

PS: LabVIEW still has the problem of localization and globalization (runtime supports only few languages, built-in error codes are in few languages, no unicode, no easy tool for localization, no support for globalize application with culture-info formatting strings and dates, etc...) but this is matter of another idea.

add features to installer

Suppose you want to make a software made of 3 features (example: core, doc&examples, a plugin), and user can select the full installation (all 3), the custom or the simple installation (only core).

we need the dialog for this, and the ability to assign components to features in authoring

this is all pretty standard stuff nowadays.

create a single file installer with embedded resources, exe or msi.

a single file is easier to download (1 click), we avoid tedious procedures like "make a auto-extracting zip files and run setup when done". A single MSI is a winner in enterprise scenario, where it can be managed better by sys-admins and their software.

update check facilities

so software today is very changing: not only bugs, but according to Agile principles, today developers starts "small", and then proceed with increments and sprints, using tools like git, build servers, repositories, etc...

this is the way software is today.

if you develop software in a waterfall fashion....you are stuck in the 80s-90s, pretty much out of market.

So it is essential to have a built in update, at least an easy stuff.

For example, let developer specify a rss-like file on a server that has information about the latest software, and provide some vis that interact with that.

Don't you want to re-invent the wheel? Port Sparkle on LabVIEW (http://sparkle.andymatuschak.org/).

This would be great for LabVIEW 2014.

I'll come back at august 2014 to verify lol

bye

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Downloads and updates that self-extract to an installation image are often placed into different folders under "\National Instruments Downloads" even for very similar products or even updates to the same product.

For example, LabVIEW 2012 extracts to "\LabVIEW English\2012" but the f1 update extracts to "LabVIEW Development Environment\2012 (32-bit) f1"

The 2012 Run-Time Engine extracts to "\LabVIEW Run-Time Engine\2012 (32-bit) f1" while the 2011 Run-Time Engine extracts to different folders depending on which update it is.

The 2011 f2 extracts to "\LabVIEW\Run-Time Engine\2011 f2 32-bit\Standard" but f3 extracts to "\LabVIEW\2011f3\Run-Time Engine\Standard"

This can make it difficult when looking at one of the top level folders to know what it contains. Is it a Run-Time Engine, an update ,or a main program file ? If the main program and all its updates were under one folder, then by copying just that one folder one would know that all files and updates were included in the copy.

Steve

Code Signing for Mac OS X

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安装程序能不能改一下啊

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I find conditional disables very useful for managing complex applications that require multiple configurations. Often I have several versions of an application with some features removed (disabled depending on hardware support or target platform) and use a conditional token to turn on or off these features. What i find frustrating is that this is not connected (at least as far as I know) to the build process. I would like the project conditional disable symbols to be overridable in the build script so that I can have several build scripts with different settings.

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Script to Activate Lab View

Deployment of Application to cRIO

Recently DMC developed a high speed vision inspection system using LabVIEW. This system inspects many different parts and each part requires different inspection criteria, so we needed to develop a user interface (UI) that could be used to configure the current products, as well as be flexible enough to configure new products.

The manufacturing machine was already running on a Windows CE device, so our UI would need to interface with the UI already on the system and run on Windows CE. For a faster development time we decided to go with C# .NET for Windows CE. Unfortunately, the .NET library and functionality for Windows CE is far less capable than the standard .NET library.

The Windows CE library was sufficient for most of our needs, but there were two areas that proved fairly difficult. The first difficult item was obtaining and decoding the custom TCP messages that contained the images and inspection results from the LabVIEW Embedded Vision System that was running the vision inspection. However, after spending some time encoding and decoding the images, the UI was able to access full-sized images from the inspection system.
The next difficulty was that once these images were on the UI we needed to be able to zoom, pan, and draw inspection areas on the image. In a full .NET library this would have been really simple, but for a Windows CE device it required some custom work. The first step was to create a custom control and place just a picture box inside. Additionally, I set the SizeMode to StretchImage. By having the image take up whatever size the picture box was, I was able to zoom by increasing/decreasing the size of the picture box. Additionally, I was able to pan by moving the picture box relative to the custom control.

I have included all of the back-end code that I used to make the image behave as I wanted. The code I had was significantly more complicated, as I needed to be able to draw and pan rectangles that were used for inspection zones. I tried to remove all of that code to make the items I am explaining more clear; however, if anything seems odd, it is likely a remaining piece of the old code. If anyone is interested in the rectangle drawing code I would be happy to provide more information. Here is a link to the simplified code:

http://www.dmcinfo.com/Blog/articleType/ArticleView/articleId/664/Image-Manipulation-in-Windows-CE-or-Mobile-using-VS-NET.aspx

I did a search and did not find this. Hopefully it is not a dupe.

The event structure has become an almost integral part of LabVIEW programming. It should no longer be considered an advanced tool that is only needed in the full development system and higher. Events should be included in the base package. Maybe it means slightly increasing the cost of base and slightly decreasing the price of full. I don't know. But there should not be a LabVIEW that does not include the event structure. I own (my company owns) the development suite so I get nothing out of this. But if I were to buy my own copy I could almost see spending $1,249 but definately not $2,599. I am not going to spend over a grand for events and I am not going to program in LabVIEW without them either. So maybe someday, if this idea is accepted, I will get something out of it. And so will National Instruments.

Upgrading from older versions

Give the user the ability to upgrade versions of Teststand or labview without bringing the test equipment down for several hours. Currently it is quicker to image the whole pc than install a new NI software version. Some of the software (from other vendors) we run has propretiary configuration and imaging isn't always feasible. I would like to be able to upgrade from Labview 8.6 to 2010 without stopping production, just upgraded from 8.2 to 8.6 and on 50computers, on a production floor, it was logistically difficult. It would be a while before I consider upgrading again, with the current setup.

LabVIEW Idea Exchange

Make it possible to change the folder for My Documents during installation of LabVIEW

Create RT system Image from Component Definition

Base and Full Evaluation Package

Bit Bit windows detection

Installer: time to make a state-of-art features for a 2014 software.

Consistency in downloads installation folder locations

Driver Package Installation for Different Languages

Code Signing for Mac OS X

安装程序能不能改一下啊

Match destinations with GetSystemDirectory.vi

set conditional disables in build scripts

Keep a copy of older version of password protected VIs during upgrading to newer LabView version

Labview Driver for Spartan3A 3An Kit board

spartan 3A/AN Kit and Labview FPGA for uuniversity

Script to Activate Lab View

Deployment of Application to cRIO

Image Manipulation in Windows CE or Mobile using VS .NET

Notification about Compatibility of Modules with 64 bit Labview 2010

Include Events In Base Package

Upgrading from older versions