ATTN: ALL LABVIEW DRIVER WRITERS (& help with Yokogawa WT3000 VIs)

[blockheadjr]

It seems there is an aversion to decent documentation with Labview drivers.  Every driver I have download these last two years has had nary a word about the function of the various VIs, outside of the VI name.  I suppose this is fine if your life is immersed in Labview code day in and day out - but for those of us who don't eat and sleep VIs, this tendency is a waste of time and money (not to mention just poor programming).

Please.  I beg you.  If you write drivers for instruments, insert some documentation.  It makes life so much easier and will reduce blunt-force trauma incidents due to the beating of people's heads against the wall, trying to figure out what the hell your VI does.

Thank you.

Now, could one of you fine people tell me which VI to use to read and output a measurement from a Yokogawa WT3000 Power Analyser?  Yes, I have the drivers, and yes I've plunked every reasonable VI from the library down to try and do this.  It appears it requires a string of VIs to do this simple function, but it looks like I'll have to reverse engineer the drivers just to find out how they work - which pretty much defeats the whole purpose of downloading the drivers in the first place.

Pardon my frustration, but I think some programmers are so lost in the code they forget who their end users are.

Thanks again,

Your flat-forheaded friend,

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[gwd]

Ummm...if you've got an APPROVED driver then it includes example programs showing how things all fit together. Now it might not run without tweaking some of the addresses...but this is roughly equivalent to documentation. Good enough. Most manufacturers will do this for their instruments.

If you've just picked up something on the web...maybe something somebody wrote for his own use...that's another story. Maybe it's a start, maybe it's useless. What do you expect, it's charity, open source you know. The person to complain to is the manufacturer, though, for not providing a reasonable driver in the first place.

(For more about approved drivers see http://zone.ni.com/devzone/conceptd.nsf/webmain/6100bc4ca014910786256e4a006fe675.)

[Dennis_Knutson]

Are you talking about the driver on NI's site? If so, then I see quite a bit of documentation. I didn't look at every function but the ones I did look at, had a description for the function and each control and indicator also had a description. You just have to turn on context help to view them. Current driver standards do not require a separate help file and frankly, I wouldn't want one.

The VI called YKWT3000 Application Example1 is single VI that reads and outputs a waveform. Yes, it uses a couple of different subVIs to perform this but breaking down an instrument's commands into a series of subVIs is usually a good thing. For example, you can use the config waveform function just once at the beginning of your program. I think I might have combined the Read Waveform, Read Sample Rate, and Data Convert into one function though. There's a feedback option at the bottom of every download screen. You might want to add any comments you have there. That's the best way to get changes done to a driver.

[blockheadjr]

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You just have to turn on context help to view them.

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I happen to enjoy wearing egg on my face, thank you very much.

(Seriously - thanks.  Completely spaced the HELP option.)

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