Measurement Studio 8.5 and Visual Studio C++ 2008

[Reine N]

Hi,

we are developing a video inspection system for a customer.
One of the customer requirement is that the SW shall be developed using C++ (We are using Microsoft Visual C++ 2008).
The system shall record inspection videos and the recorded video frames shall have data overlay, date , time, position et.c.
The source for some of the information is a NI Datasocket server. For a C++ application to receive data from a Datasocket
the NI Measurement Studio is needed, right?

I have downloaded the evaluation version of  Measurement Studio 8.5. When I tried to install this SW I found that MS
Visual Studio 2008 is not supported for C++, only VS 2005. Trying to install the Measurement Studio for VS 2005
didn't help much since the installer refuses to install if VS 2005 is not present.

What can I do? Will Measurement Studio support VS C++ 2008?
Is there another way to access data from a Datasocket?

Best regards,
Reine Nilsson

[herosphro]

Hello Reine,

If you look at post #29 in this forum the C++ support for Visual Studio is slated to come out in Q4 2008.  As mentioned this is subject to change but hopefully this will give you a feeling for the timeline we are working with.

[drohacek]

Reine -

If Q4 is too late for your needs, I have listed a few workarounds. Which you choose depends on your level of comfort with the various technologies, and the dependencies you are willing to introduce into the system.

1. Implent your DataSocket communication layer in a C++/CLI DLL in Visual Studio 2008. With this approach, you would use the .NET interface to DataSocket within the C++/CLI DLL and provide an unmanaged C or C++ interface to the rest of your unmanged VS2008 application. This requries that you 1) have or develop expertise in C++/CLI and the .NET interface to DataSocket; 2) are willing to introduce a dependency on .NET into the system.
2. Implement your DataSocket communication layer in a C or C++ DLL in Visual Studio 2005 and call that DLL from your unmanaged VS2008 application. This requires that you have a copy of VS2005. If you link to the static library version of MFC and MStudio VS2005 DataSocket, you introduce no additional run-time dependencies into the system.
3. Use the DataSocket ActiveX control, installable from the MStudio VS6 support CD, directly within your VS2008 application. This requires that you 1) have or develop expertise in programming ActiveX controls from within Visual C++; and 2) are willing to introduce a dependency on the MFC 4.2 run-time (the DataSocket ActiveX control depends on it).

David Rohacek
National Instruments

[Reine N]

John, David

thank you for your replies. Unfortunatly I can´t wait for Q4 2008 so I have to look into David´s
workarounds.

Thank you.
Reine Nilsson

[pigswig]

Hello,

I have been away from MStudio since v1.0. I am developing an app in VC++ 2008 using MFC. I really liked the CNiGraph controls and would like to use them again. After scanning some of the forum posts, I see that v8.5 does not directly support the ability to have the wizards and the controls added to the toolbox. That is fine for me now, but how can I get the MFC CNiGraph libraries.

My app does not utilize anything unique to VS2008, so could I also co-install VS2005, and will CNiGraph work in that environment using MFC?

Aside question: Over the last several years I have been moving between embedded software and Windows desktop software. My last time spent in the Windows world it appeared that MFC was dominate and .NET with C#/VB was questionable. Is it a good time now to invest my time learning C# to take advantage of possible advances? I noticed that Microsoft added more functionality to MFC very recently, so I am confused as to which direction to focus upon.

Thanks,

Shawn 

[JonathanN]

Hi Shawn,

If you are wanting to use the CNiGraph libraries, then you will need to use Visual Studio 2005 as we are linked against the MFC 8.0 libraries.  We are planning on providing C++ support in VS 2008 in Q4 of this year, but that date is subject to change.  Personally I would suggest building your application in VS 2005 and then just upgrading that application when we have native C++ support for VS 2008.

As far as your question goes regarding which direction you should go, Microsoft is pushing the .NET platform  and thus we are focussing our development efforts on this platform as well. We are not making any updates to the C++ libraries (besides DAQ) but rather our updates, new features, etc will be in our .NET libraries. 

It would be beneficial for you to start learning .NET.

Best Regards,