Mass Compilers
The most useful LabVIEW resources you have never read
As I mentioned at the last LVUG meeting, I want to start to grow the groups presenence on the community forums. One way I plan to do this is by posting blog entries to our group page. Let's see if it works.
This post is about the LabVIEW Help file that ships with every version of LabVIEW, I couldn't state that in the title because most people would assume that the only thing worse than reading the LabVIEW Help file is reading a blog about why you should read the LabVIEW Help file. If you are still with me at this point, great, prepare to reap the benefits.
As a CPI I often get asked what books I recommend for learning LabVIEW while teaching LabVIEW courses. Two books that I always recommend are:
- A Software Engineering Approach to LabVIEW: http://www.amazon.com/Software-Engineering-Approach-LabVIEW/dp/0130093653
- The LabVIEW Style Book: http://www.amazon.com/LabVIEW-Style-Book-Peter-Blume/dp/0131458353/ref=sr_1_1?s= books&ie=UTF8&qid=1...*
*In interest of full disclosure I should note that I work for Bloomy Controls, whose President, Peter Blume, authored The LabVIEW Style Book.
Both of these books are great resources and are worth reading. However, another great resource, which you don't even need to buy, is the LabVIEW Help file. If you want to read this, all you need to do is open LabVIEW. Who would have thought, in order to learn LabVIEW, you must first open LabVIEW.
To get to the help file, from LabVIEW go to Help>>LabVIEW Help...
This will launch the LabVIEW Help file. It will look a lot like this...
Notice that there are multiple ways to interact with the document in order to find the information you are looking for:
You can navigate the Contents tab to sort through the content by topic, you can search the index by keyword on the Index tab, you can search the document by keyword(s) on the Search tab, and you can browse your favorite entries on the Favorites tab
This file contains literally everything you may want to know about LabVIEW, and it is searchable, and it is free, and you already have a copy. The entire scope of the document is too large to cover in one blog post, so I am going to the time to point out a few entries that you should definitely read.
Lets start by using the Index tab to search on the keyword "VI Memory Usage"
This will bring up the following article...
This article goes over the details of how LabVIEW manages the memory of VI's behind the scenes. The entire article is worth reading, but if you find yourself getting bogged down by the details I recommend skipping ahead to the following sections:
- Dataflow Programming and Data Buffers
- Avoid Constantly Resizing Data
- Developing Efficient Data Structures
It may take a few trips through this article to soak it all in, but you will be a better developer for it.
Next try searching on "Style Guidelines" on the Index tab.
This is going to bring up a short article on establishing style guidelines. However, what I am more interested in is a style guidelines checklist that is embedded as a link in this article.
Click on the "LabVIEW Style Checklist" link, and you will be taken to this page...
This is a great article with pointers on how to achieve good style on both the front panel and the block diagram. Following these guidelines will help a team of developers by establishing rules that promote writing code that is readible, scalable and maintainable.
Lastly, search on the term "New Features" on the Index tab. You should find a page named "new features", view it. This is a page detailing the new features that have been added to whichever version of LabVIEW you are currently using. This is a great page to view when you upgrade you LabVIEW install every August. The page for LV 2012 looks like this:
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Feel free to dig around, you will be surprised by the amount of useful information this document contains. If you stumble across any other useful pages, post them so that other users can read them too!
