VI documentation feature broken in labview 8.0, 8.20, 8.21, 8.5

[billings11]

The VI documentation feature is broken.  Descriptions of type def controls are not added to the vi documentation report.  Also, all the clusters are parsed and inserted in the control tables wrong.  Independent cluster controls show up as elements of other clusters.

Since we've been through four releases without a fix, does anyone know f this feature is supported anymore?  It is useless in its current state, so it seems as though it isn't.

[tst]

I doubt the feature is unsupported. It seems more likely that not too many people use it the same way you do and so did not notice this, but I would be interested to know what NI does to document its VIs.

Anyway, as usual, it's useful if you can create an example to show the exact behavior.

Also, how is this related to this? Is it just that that is single example of the issues you brought up here?

[Amanda_H]

Hi,

Yes, this feature is supported by NI. Also, the documentation issue you are describing was reported to R&D (Corrective Action Request #4F6C651W). R&D will look into getting this corrected and documented accurately. Thanks for your feedback, and I apologize for any inconvenience this has caused you. Have a great day!

[billings11]

tst,

I am using vi documentation to create help files for an API I am working on.  The API will be distributed to customers of a new embedded motion control product my company makes to provide labview support.  So I am simply printing documentatin to rtf files from my API vi's with vi descriptions, icons, and controls to make it look just like NI's help files for their vi's.  Once I have them all created I will import them into a chm file with a utility I have.  Then I'll go back and link them in the vi's so the API will be self-documenting and have help files attached to everything.  And it will all go in a big source distribution.  I don't think I'm doing anything weird here.  This seems like it is exactly how NI would recommend it.

The problem source distributions are broken and so is vi documentation in 8.0, 8.2, and 8.21, and vi doc is still broken in 8.5.  But I can't ship the API in 8.5 anyway because our customers probably won't have it yet.

So yeah in the first thread I just posted about descriptions not being included.  But I am also seeing error clusters, for example, included inside all my waveform controls.  Is there an error cluster inside a waveform control that I don't know about?  I've never seen that before.

[Amanda_H]

Hi,

I would expect there to be an error cluster in the waveform graph and waveform chart so that the commands may pass out errors that occur with data inside the commands to the next command. Without these error clusters, errors will not be handled correctly and passed out of the VI.

I hope this helps! Have a great day.

[billings11]

I guess I see what you are saying, but there is no way to access that error cluster through a property or invoke node, and it can't be unbundled from a waveform data type.  For all purposes that error cluster is completely invisible and inaccessible except in vi documentation, so its really just confusing.

That's not my error cluster, thats some other invisible error cluster that shows up inside the waveform graph control itself.

Message Edited by billings11 on 11-16-2007 07:10 AM

[billings11]

Also notice in the picture I posted there are two dt controls.  One is the normal dt control as part of the waveform, the other shows up as if the Y array were a cluster with another dt control inside it.  I don't know what is going on "behind the scenes", but the only things accessible to me are t0, dt, Y, and attributes.  There is no buried error cluster or additional dt control.  So isn't this a bug?

Message Edited by billings11 on 11-16-2007 07:16 AM

[Amanda_H]

Hi,

I will look into the documentation for this so that it can be fixed in a future version of LabVIEW. Sorry for the inconvenience this has caused you. Are you able to accurately develop your code with these extra controls in the waveform controls?

[billings11]

The extra controls are only visible in documentation.  Developing is fine.  This is just another example of broken functionality when NI went from 7.1 to 8.0.


Message Edited by billings11 on 11-20-2007 07:26 AM

[dan_u]

Hi billings
Y is an array of DBL, and it seems these DBL in the Y array have dt as a label.
I think whoever created the waveform data type just copied the dt DBL into an empty array, so of course the array elements are also labelled dt.
So this is no bug. Like the elements of a cluster are displayed as sub-items of the cluster it seems the array element is also displayed as a sub-item of the array.

Daniel