LabWindows/CVI Idea Exchange

Post an idea

What is the point of this Idea Exchange, when there is such a low uptake rate from NI?

There have been many very good suggestions posted here, but only 6 are labelled as "In Beta", which I assume means will be in the CVI release this autumn. There are 106 "Under Consideration", but there is no indication what is required to move them to "In Beta". For instance, Wolfgang posted "Reduce and document the NI services running after Windows logon" on ‎04-01-2011. It went to "Under Consideration" on 08-15-2011. Two Years from the original posting, we still have nothing!

How do I justify renewing our Volume Licence Agreement when the LabWindows development effort within NI is so small?

How many people actually are on the full time LabWindows team within NI?

Distribution Kit Enhancement.

It would be helpful if the distribution kit had three additional options;

Compress all of the files and subfolders into a single *.zip file.
An option to convert the *.zip to a self extracting archive (SEA) file *.exe.
An option to automatically run "Setup.exe" after completing the file extraction from the SEA.

Option 3 is only available if option 2 is selected and option 2 is only available if option 1 is selected.

The above can be done with external tools and is helpful when distributing via a web-download, Dropbox or another internet based system. Installation for the end user is then simply a case of clicking a single link and running a single file. After that they are prompted by the usual installation dialog.

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Improve EVENT_VAL_COERCED

It would be nice if eventData1 and eventData2 were used when EVENT_VAL_COERCED is triggered.

I have an application in which I want to know if too high or low of a number entered.

GetCtrlVal always returns the coerced to number that is in range.

if eventData1 is 1 the max value was hit, if -1 the min value was hit.

eventData2 is always 0.

You can check the value returned by GetCtrlVal against the min and max of the control using GetCtrlAttribute.

I am running into an issue where my ranges change based on other control ranges and sometimes the min and max of a control are set to the same

number. I want to know if the number entered was too high or low.

Starting from CVI2010, the User Interface Browser and the Attribute Browser are both located on the right of the UIR editor in the Workspace window.

I'd like to be able to hide these windows when required: when working on small screens like when you use a laptop these windows occupy a lot of space even if you reduce their size at the minimum.

In addition, the ability to choose which window to display on the bottom left could be a good option: up to version 2009 the bottom left side of the workspace window switched between the library tree (source editor) and the attribute browser (UIR editor).

Ideally, while in the UIR editor I would like to be able to:

Choose whether to show some window on the right side or not
In case nothing is shown on the right, choose whether to have the attribute browser, the library tree or the user interface browser in the bottom left angle

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Blinking led

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I'd like the following options being added to FileBrowser tollslib control:

Ability to hide / tailor popup menu for the right portion of the FileBrowser (file list): at present, even if I disable the popup menu on the tree control (regardless it is made before or after converting the tree into a FileBrowser) the rightmost part of the control has its own popup menu enabled
In case the menu is shown, it would be a good thing to be able to add / change / hide items in that menu
Ability to programmatically set the width of columns in the file list section of the FileBrowser
Ability to programmatically set the label of columns both sections of the FileBrowser: this is particularly necessary in case you need to localize the user interface in a language other than English, as FileBrowser cannot be treated by the Localization Utility since it is created at runtime

Editting Tab Order and dimmed controls

Better Documentation

I'd like to see better documentation online.

Currently, documentation seems to be spread over different areas: online, in sample code included with the development environment, in a downloadable help file, etc. What online documentation there is is incomplete - for instance, if I'm looking at the function reFFT (just an example, I know it's obsolete), the online help gives me the parameters and what they are but they don't tell me acceptable values, e.g. what is the largest/smallest value I can use for numberOfElements: 1 - 9e99999? Another case was with the NIscope driver NISCOPE_ATTR_INPUT_CLOCK_SOURCE. When I looked at the documentation (downloaded zip file filled with CHM files) there was a list of defined values but no desciption of what they were or were not for. Example: NISCOPE_VAL_NO_SOURCE ("VAL_NO_SOURCE")...I *assume* NO SOURCE is equivalent to Intenal but should I really have to guess when looking at documentation? For that matter, why does this information only appear to be available via downloadable file?

In another case with NISCOPE I found that the niScope_ConfigureHorizontalTiming expects a certain clock frequency (10 MHz) if you're using an external clock, but if you are using a clock frequency at exactly what you're asking for you have to set the attributes directly. I messed with this for a while before calling the help desk. The person at the other end was able to tell me how to fix my problem but he could not find documentation online (accessable by me) where this information could be located. It seems to me that the number of help calls could be drastically reduced if sufficient help were available online. Finding information on error codes is similarly lacking.

I also have a problem with referencing "installed" sample code in lieu of a online programmer's manual. I don't always run on my development machine. So I'm on my target system (that does not have the development environment installed) and I want to look something up...it's very frustrating to find all help on a particular subject referring to my development machine.

SetAnnotationAttribute permits you to pass -1 in AnnotationIndex parameter to apply the attribute to all annotations on the graph, while SetCursorAttribute does not. It would be good that this command too permits someway to operate on all cursors in a single pass.

As an example, when I want to print a graph on a black-and-white printer I prepare the control for this changing all elements to black.

I can use a single instruction for annotations:

SetAnnotationAttribute (panelHandle, PANEL_GRAPH, -1, ATTR_ANNOTATION_CAPTION_COLOR, VAL_BLACK);

On the other hand, I need to iterate on all elements for cursors

GetCtrlAttribute (panelHandle, PANEL_GRAPH, ATTR_NUM_CURSORS, &numCursors);
for (k = 1; k <= numCursors; k++) SetCursorAttribute (panelHandle, PANEL_GRAPH, k, ATTR_CURSOR_COLOR, VAL_BLACK);

Fuzzy Logic for Labwindows/CVI

I believe there is a Fuzzy Logic package for LabView. I suggest that a Fuzzy Logic package also be provided for LabWindows/CVI.

I am working on a motor control project and I do have my own Fuzzy Logic code that I developed in C a few years ago for a Z-World board and recently ported it to a MicroChip dsPIC processor, also in C. I can port my own code to LabWindows but I believe it would be better to use code developed by NI folks as the NI code would probably more stable, reliable, flexible etc.

I won't attempt to expound on the advantages of Fuzzy Logic (FL) over PID except to say I have found FL to be very useful and easy to get working as it doesn't require extensive and exhaustive (and exhausting) system testing in order to come up with a working control system. Just a set of rules and a FL compiler to produce a "control surface" that is used with system feedback values to compute output values to produce a working control system.

So how about providing Fuzzy Logic code for LabWindows/CVI?

'Unit' indicator on numerics

Hello all,

when a numeric is an integer, there's the option of having the radix preceeding the value in the control. For float/double, I'd like this tiny radix box to be extended for arbitrary strings in order to show the physical unit (m/s, kV, etc) of that numeric.

Right now the workarounds are:

- use a text box and display the value and the unit inside. Problem: works only for indicators, no arrows for changeable controls.

- display the unit in the label of the control.

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There is an option to display the default display format for integers and floating point, but no such option to set the default format for
"String Display" or "Array display". Strangely, "Array display" shows my arrays as decimal numbers even though I have the default display format for integers set to Hex.

Ideally, I would like to be able to set them separately for char and unsigned char strings. For example:
char strings I prefer to display as Ascii, null-terminated strings (the current default).
Unsigned char strings I prefer to display in Hexadecimal, with Options==Display Entire buffer. This is because my unsigned char strings are actually arrays of bytes.

I've been using CVI for a long time and it's frustrating to setup these options each and every time I look at one of my unsigned char strings. Even if it can't be setup separately for signed/unsigned chars, I would like the option to set some sort of default.

Another aside, would it be possible to display the array/string as hex characters with the Ascii equivalent just below it? A dual display would be even nicer!

Hello,

I don't know if it is possible technically but from a user's perspective it would be convenient for debugging a program (in debug configuration) if the UI constants could be provided in the data tooltips, too. Right now, if something is wrong with my UI I will have to do a lot of detective work to find out which control / control attribute is the problematic one...

Example: Consider the code

SetCtrlAttribute ( panel_handle, control_id, control_attribute, attribute_value );

Right now, if I hover over attribute_value, the tooltip will display something like "attribute_value = 24064". Then I will need to look up userint.h to find out which attribute value this is ( ATTR_CTRL_VAL ). It would be more convenient if the tooltip could include this information, too, and display something like "attribute_value = 24064 ( ATTR_CTRL_VAL )"

The same holds for control_id, because a number such as 14 will not immediately help me - I will have to go through the corresponding include file to find the respective UI control (e.g. TABPANEL_2_NUMERIC ).

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Structured Exception Handling

The FileSelectPopup dialog in LabWindows/CVI does not allow the programmer to set attributes for the dialog, such as sort order for files in the dialog.

Similar functionality already exists for other functions in CVI, such as SetPrintAttribute to set attributes for a file to be printed. It'd be extremely convenient to have a SetFileSelectAttribute with options such as VAL_SORT.

It shouldn't be necessary to set these attributes to use the FileSelectPopup dialog; their use would simply change the settings from their default values.

Thanks,

Daniel E.

Applications Engineer

National Instruments

Advanced UIR design or control behavior

Hi community

To have more flexibility on the UIR conception, it would be convenient that controls or panel have a structure and behavior similar to Java Object (Java swing tutorial).

It would be necessary that CVI offers a list of basic control as it is the way today. But it would be interesting that CVI offers some special controls which could be a composition of multiple basic controls (or simply a composition of panel with its control). (Refers to Java containers)

IE: I create a panel composed with a picture control, a text control and a button control. Then I would like to have a control which able to react like a list control but each item of this list would be my composed panel.

IE: I create a preformatted “top panel” with some control to search, apply … then into this panel I have an area able to contain another panel. With this, I’m in position to change the panel into the area and preserving the design of the “top panel”.

IE: I could insert into a combo box an object like a radio button or a button instead of an numerical ou string item as it the way today.

I don’t know if this suggestion is understandable?

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LabWindows/CVI Idea Exchange

Actually implement some of these ideas; only 6 ideas are in Beta compared to 271 New or Under Consideration

Distribution Kit Enhancement.

Improve EVENT_VAL_COERCED

Ability to hide the User Interface and Attribute browser boxes

Provide opacity attribute for graph elements

Blinking led

Add a few more options to FileBrowser toolslib control

Editting Tab Order and dimmed controls

Better Documentation

Make SetCursorAttribute behave like SetAnnotationAttribute

Fuzzy Logic for Labwindows/CVI

'Unit' indicator on numerics

Improved 'Edit Label/Value Pairs' popup panel

Please allow setting default display options on Array Display and String display

Better UI debugging: provide constant names

Make ATTR_TITLE_FONT for GetPanelAttribute() work for top-level panels.

Structured Exception Handling

Realtek NIC Support for CVI and LabView Real-Time

Add a Function to Set Attributes of a File Select Popup Dialog

Advanced UIR design or control behavior