Get your questions answered by LabVIEW developers.

[Gurdas]

Shane,

I FULLY second you on the state of LV Help. There has been many a frustrating moment and all I could shout was "help!"

I hate to disappoint you but the help has not improved since 6.1.

1) The number and quality of books on LV is meagre. NI should take string proactive steps to address this. For DIY folks like me, a good book is a boon.

2) The problem with LV's help is that care has not been taken to explain all required terms. It is assumed that the user would be aware of a certain technical aspect. Sometimes this aspect is specific to NI and since there is no link to the said item, one is lost and frustrated. As an example, take the case of the help for "exponential window". Try as I might, I could not say for sure what 'final value' is supposed to mean.

Using LV 6.1 and 7.1 on Win2k

- Gurdas

[Albert.Geven]

Hi JR when can we expect some answers?

[IanW]

I make much use of highlighting sections of code and using the Edit/Create SubVi. Several years ago I picked up a tip from this forum to include spare terminals for the connector for future modifications (something I usually need to do!!), but this takes several operations to achieve. Now what would be realy helpful is the ability to set a default pattern for the connector so that at the time of creating the new vi I can have spare connections built in automatically.

[becktho]

Hi again

I usually use enums (strict type def) when developing a state machine. If the enum is wired to the case-structure, it shows the names of the items of the enum. When I want the name of this case as a string I have to do it with some small code.

It would be nice if there are properties available similar to the event structure, so that on the left side was some kind of property node where I could extract the name as string (e.g. for logging purpose).

Thomas

[johnsold]

I like the idea of being able to set a default pattern also. Even when creating new VIs from scratch. I know that a template can be created, but many times it is quicker to just select New VI. If the terminal pane pattern is defined by user selected default rather than the number of indicators and controls which happen to be on the panel at the moment,it would be very convenient and allow for consistent wiring.

Lynn

[Lycangeek]

Wow - there has definitely been a lot of activity on this thread - and some good ideas. At the same time, I'm not sure if we have conveyed exactly the kind of feedback we would like to get. If you go back to the original post by JR, you'll see we're trying to expand upon the current set of blogs we have (www.ni.com/blogs) and into the new "field" of podcasting.

The goal here is to provide more inside information about how LabVIEW works, some tips and tricks, or even "tell me about the history of xyz". It is pretty neat to consider that the father of LabVIEW and several of the developers from LV 1 and 2 are still actively working in the LabVIEW group. Since a podcast is a one-way flow of information, it isn't an easy medium to discuss new feature ideas. It is hard to ask for more information about the idea, and often all you can say is "that sounds like a good idea". Of course, in some cases, we might be able to explain why we haven't done a certain feature if it is something more interesting than "we haven't had the time yet", but those are kinda rare.

The other goal is to ensure that this isn't a marketing vehicle. NI already has a lot of investment in marketing, web events, local area events, tradeshows, NI Week, etc. The blogs and podcasts are more of an engineering department vehicle to reach out and make a connection to the community. So, if you are interested in some new product or area (doesn't have to be just LV - or even software...we make hardware too - lol) and want to get the "raw" information on it from engineering - and get to know the engineers involved - this is the way to get it.

[tst]

Brian, a few months ago there was a "request" for a "why? channel" - a conduit to the developers which will allow us to satisfy our curiosity about different mundane (or not so mundane) questions - the "why questions".

I think the main problem is that these questions usually come out from a specific need - it may be hard to come up with them without running into the problem. You can see that even when I tried hard, the best I could come up with was "what is the trend on making LV more design oriented?".

I assure you that the more involved people would love it if we had a place where we could regularly deposit such questions whenever they come up, and know that the developers are listening and could eventually answer. Using the email address from any of your blogs would probably work for that, but I was thinking of a more public\organized place. Another board on this site?

[Todd_SD]

Thanks for clarifying this Brian.  In that case, I would love to hear more about LV embedded and experiences in developing and testing this product.  In Joel's blog he wrote about creating an application for his Linksys router using LV Embedded and I would love to hear more about these types of examples.  I was very excited to read about this in his blog and I'm hoping to get ideas on how I could possibly use this tool in the future.

[Lycangeek]

tst,

That is a good question and I'm afraid that the right person to answer that is JR, who is on vacation this week (NI gave us two days off around the 4th so a lot of people took the entire week for vacation). There is a small group of us here at NI that are trying to work out the best ways to develop this informal flow of information between engineering and the community (JR, who heads up the group, the bloggers and a few others).

For right now, my suggestion is to email one of the bloggers directly with the request and/or post it here. One of the ways to encourage more developers to blog is to show them interest in their area. What I would like to do is, if asked a question that is outside my area of expertise, get the right developer to write a "guest post" on my blog. If enough traffic comes up for a certain area, then that person might start up his or her own blog. Just an idea of mine, but I believe the other bloggers are also open to this.

As to a more formal "intake" of requests, I'll defer to JR.

[Lycangeek]

Todd_SD,

I'll second that request. I think the embedded version of LV is incredibly neat - and I can't wait until NI Week 2006 where I hope to see some examples of what people have done with this new product. I forwarded your comment to Joel in addition to having it on this thread.