What is the preferred way to distribute a library of VIs?

[BPerlman]

I am putting together a set of VIs (and demo programs using them) for distribution to our customers.  Our company has several such sets of "software tools" in LabVIEW, and they are generally distributed as several LLBs, each LLB containing a group of VIs which relate to one or more modes of operation.

I autogenerated my VIs (they are wrappers for a DLL) via LabVIEWs "Import" function.  It organized things very differently -- it put the DLL in a directory with an lvlib, and put the VIs in a subfolder named, aptly, "VIs", and a subVI in a directory named "subvi" (to which I subsequently added more subVIs).

On first glance, this seems to me to be a more comfortable way of working, but I am not a very experienced LabVIEW programmer.  I am trying to figure out what our (potential) customers are likely to prefer.

How would you prefer to receive such a library?  LLBs?  the lvlib + two directories?  Something else?

Is there a generally accepted way that one "should" do this?

Thank you.

B.

[ABCPrograms]

Well in my personal opinion I would like to receive the llb file

[BPerlman]

Thank you.  Now I know what at least one person prefers!

Anyone else with an opinion?

B.

[Ashwin_S]

If I do the Source distribution to send the code for customer,  I will go for the  LLB.

There was already a serious discussion in the forum about the LLB and LVLIB, which is the lesser of two evils.

Sorry I can't find the appropriate link to redirect you, will post if I found it

AshwiN,

[altenbach]

Why not package them using the VI package manager as used for example in the LabVIEW tools network?

[BPerlman]

Ashwin,

Thanks.  So far I've found:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/How-to-Remove-Old-VIs-from-LLB/m-p/1069297#M473896  (here on of the Knights says LLBs should usually be avoided)

http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/llb-and-mnu-files/m-p/1271268#M530923  (here one of the Knights of NI says never to build an LLB)

The information on instrument drivers looks helpful; what we are doing is similar (we sell cards -- our software library is the API to program the card).  It talks about creating the instrument driver as a "project", as opposed to LLB, or LVLIB,

Are those the threads you meant?

B.

[BPerlman]

Why not?  I don't know much about it.  Thanks for the tip -- I'm looking into it right now.

Is it appropriate for a software tools library which controls hardware?  That is not the same as other add-ins.

Thanks.

B.

[Ashwin_S]

Yes, you got some of those, if you dig in the Forum you get more about the Problem faced using lvlib/llb

I got this http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Adding-VIs-to-LLBs-Is-there-an-Easy-Way/td-p/997396

AshwiN,

[Jim_Kring]

Hi B.,

This is Jim from JKI, one of the team members who develops VIPM.  As altenbach mentioned, VIPM is probably a great solution for your needs in distributing your LabVIEW tools to your customers.  It can handle sets of VIs that are used for controlling hardware, too -- it's not just for LabVIEW add-ons, but any set of VIs that you want to distribute to others, externally, to others in your company, or even for using by yourself on several different projects.

If you have any questions, please let me know.  You can also post any questions to our discussion forums or contact us directly.

Thanks,

-Jim Kring, JKI Founder

[lordsathish]

Hey Jim,

If I'm correct we need the professional edition of VIPM for packaging VI's. And this professional edition is not free. Any idea of making it free 

I'm not sure if this is the right place to discuss this. In case there is more info on topic in some other place please direct me there.

Thanks,

Sathish