password protect the block diagram

[Hooovahh]

Everything Rolf said was correct.  Removing the block diagram does lock you down to a specific version, and has disadvantages making it a not attractive solution.

Yes you can develop code to remove the block diagrams when creating the package, but now you need to create a new package for each version of LabVIEW.  Lets say I go and buy a toolkit off of the Tools network and I install it.  If the creator of the package choose to remove the block diagrams then I can only use that package in that version of LabVIEW.  This causes toolkits and packages to only work on increasingly older versions of LabVIEW where passwording the VIs allow them to be recompiled.  Now releasing one version of your package works on all versions of LabVIEW.  Less work for the developers, and more flexibility for the users.  It is always possible to archive your VIs, if you are the developer, if you aren't then you are screwed.

[wiebe@CARYA]

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@paul_cardinale wrote:

Rolf is wrong.  It is always possible to archive copies of VI that have their block diagrams while distributing copies that don't have their block diagrams.

Rolf did not say anything about that. Of course you can keep copies with diagrams! That does not invalidate anything he said.

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@paul_cardinale wrote:

Since the default behavior of the app builder is to delete the BDs, the feature would be nearly useless if it wouldn't work on VIs without a BD. 

And you can build executables with VI's that don't have diagrams (, if the target is the same as the current OS). Also not mentioned at all by Rolf.

Distributing without diagram means you need to distribute (and create!) a version for every single version you support. So that means a Windows 2013 32 bit version, a Windows 2013 64 bit version, a Linux 2013 32 bit version, etc. It's a pain! Every OS, 32\64 bit, every LabVIEW version, it gets old really soon. And you have to repeat that every time the code is upgraded, so you also need to keep all those versions, because only the exact version can create the distribution without the diagram. You still won't be able to build for RT, as that would require a recompile.

Just live with the fact that your code will never be completely protected. 

An option for the future would be to remove the diagram, but to keep the DIFR or LLVM code. That would allow a recompile, but the source won't be available. It would still be reversible, but so is assembler.