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TestStand's LabVIEW interface could benefit by being able to programmatically get and set LabVIEW Class Objects using the Get Property Value.vi and the Set Property Value.vi.

 

After much toil with this subject, I've finally come to the conclusion that I cannot get a LabVIEW Class Object from TestStand using LabVIEW. I've tried both the Get Property Value.vi and a combination of property and invoke nodes to no avail.

 

Capture.PNG

When profiling an sequence, it's would be useful if also the version of .NET DLL that was loaded/unloaded could be displayed in the report in a new column next to Item Name. I have not found a way to do do this. I think this would be helpful to be able to compare performance of different versions of DLL:s, and also when troubleshooting sequences (e.g. when adding search directories and wrong version of a DLL is used by mistake).

 

Currently the only way I found to see version loaded was using tools like Visual Studio or Process Explorer, but that's run time, requiring breakpoints etc - the above approach would provide an better overview of the execution, and is more convenient.

 

 profiling.png

Hello,

Many SW-Tool providers have realized that how comfortable it is for a programmeruser to work with dark backgrounds. Microsoft did it in 2013 for visual studio and now browser companies are doing the same. Unfortunately, I can Change background color of MAX and TestStand. This makes longer working painful for eyes.

 

An example of such a bakground is attached with the message.

 

Such a feature will improve ergonomics.

 

Thank you

Regards

Ricky

If you create a *.tsd file, there is no way of reverting back to older formats of the deployment utility. We should have a Save As feature for converting these build definitions to older versions of TestStand, just like the Save As feature for normal sequence files.

For TestStand Sequence Analyzer, all the results information/reports include status, user, computer, file, time and results.  However there's nothing to link to what version of the sequence file you actually analyzed (it just has the path to the file analyzed).  It would be very helpful for compliance tracking if the results/reports also included the sequence file version. 

I can add my own test to log this as information, but it would probably be helpful to others if it was included as part of the results header information.

Hello,

 

With the strongest possible emphasis I would like to propose the following new command line arguments for the ORPU. These are desperately needed.

 

  1. /minimized    Launch ORPU truly minimized without having it steal window focus.
  2. /no-splash    Launch ORPU without splash screen
  3. /silent           Launch ORPU in the tray, without a splash screen and without having it steal window focus.

This is a profoundly useful tool and we are adopting it on dozens of stations around the world... but not having these improvements is really frustrating for operators and these improvements appear to be low hanging fruit. No thanks, I don't want to recompile the ORPU for several very good reasons.

 

Please help us out by carefully considering the daily use cases for this tool.

 

References:

https://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-TestStand/How-do-I-get-the-TestStand-Splash-Screen-to-not-appear-when-I/m-p/3120481

https://www.ni.com/docs/en-US/bundle/teststand-api-reference/page/tsref/using-command-line-arguments-with-the-offline.html

Feature request 523524

 

Hi,

 

I have a table in file globals (2D array).

Each column of the table has an associate variable in file global.

For i want my custom step to run N time which is the number of rows in the table.

In each iteration, i want to take each value of the row and assign the value to the asscoiated variable in file global.

so, i want to have a looping mechanism in the expression.

I guess it is not explicitly present right now. Right now, i use teststand API to update the variable.

It would be nice to have looping in expression. This will improve my custom steps performance.

 

Regards,

Muthuraman S

It would be nice if NameOf() had the option to return the entire name including the containers that it is nested within. This could be an optional boolean parameter in NameOf, such as NameOf(Parameters.Contaner1.Value, True) returns "Parameters.Contaner1.Value" and not just "Value".

Forgive me for the cavalcade of suggestions this week...

 

One of my favorite options in the LabVIEW development environment is the "Find all Instances" context menu option, whereby one is able to locate all calls to the particular SubVI.

 

I have long wished that something similar were available in the TestStand Sequence Editor. I'd like to propose a "Find All Sequence Calls" context menu selection when right-clicking on a sequence in the Sequence pane. This could leverage the Find tool, but save the user from copying and pasting the name of the sequence. (And save the user from configuring the search options to narrow down the results) It'd be nice to be able to define the scope of the "find" operation to either the selected sequence or all sequences in memory, but I'd settle for a simple search of the open sequence.

 

Cheers,

 

Mr. Jim

 

FindAllSequenceCalls.png

 

 

Hi all,

 

Based on a lot of experimentation, there is no way at run-time to map a logical name to a VISA descriptor in the Session Manager API.

...at least not without adding an entry to NISessionMgr.ini.

 

[VISA Logical Names]
LittleOldComPort = "ASRL1::INSTR"

  

If I don't do this I can't open an instrument session. I'd still like to use the session manager, but use an external method to map my logical names. (e.g. a database, XML, or something a little less obscure than an .ini file buried in program files)

 

If the Session Manager is still a supported product, is it possible to add a method to add a logical names for VISA descriptors without using the INI file?

 

 

If there's already a way to do this, please excuse my ignorance.

 

Thanks as always,

 

Mr. Jim

I would recommend adding a "Right-Click" option for analyzing a "subseuqence" within a main sequence.

Many developers develop a Main Sequence with many Sequences in the Sequences window. Currently it's not possible to select "one" or "a subset" of the sequences to run through the analyzer .

Recommend adding this option to TestStand for selecting "right-clicking" a subsequence and running the analyzer on what is selected rather than ":all " of them.

Hi All, My code module to be deployed uses some VI's from user.lib. When I'm trying to create the deployment, in LabVIEW options I'm excluding all files from vi.lib,user.lib and instr.lib. After creating the deployment, still my code module looks for the VI's from user.lib in SupportVIs folder which is parallel to the deployed folder. I don't know why it is still looking in SupportVIs folder instead of taking it from user.lib. Please share your thoughts about this.

 

Thanks in advance!

Regards,

vani

For one of our test racks we have a PXI Rack that is full of Measurement HW devices from NI.  Recently tow of the cards in the rack were returned to us from the calibration house with OOT (Out of Tolerance) as found readings.  This put into question the product tested and shipped in the past year.  Since the test fixture is used to test 14 different assemblies, I wanted to use Teststand to generate a report that told me what hardware was being utilized during the sequence of each assembly that is tested on this fixture.  It appears that unless one intentionally adds certain system configuration information into the VI that can be read in as a variable in Teststand, that this process will be very tedious in looking at each vi called out by the sequence file and looking for HW callouts.  It would be great to have this capability baked into the handshaking between VI's and Teststand to allow for a simple query within TestStand.  c.S.

It will be good to have a converter to convert numeric/string value as dotnet object or get the numeric/string value from dotnet object, just like the fuctions present in LabVIEW. While using the dll in teststand , it will be helpful

It would be great to have an option in the TestStand Deployment Utility to clear the ReloadLastWorkspaceAtStartup flag in the TestExec.ini file when making a deployment.  

 

I usually keep the flag set to save a step when developing code, but when I'm getting to the stage where I need to deploy to continue development and testing, not having this cleared results in an error that pops up on every first launch after installation.  

In order to keep file clean, sequence analyzer helps in finding "potentially unused variables". To delete such variables, each warning in sequence analyzer result has to be double clicked and then delete has to be pressed to finally remove that variable.

 

In many cases with large sequence file, there could be dozens of unused variables and in a single work-space there are dozens of .seq files.

 

Is it possible to provide a button or some option to remove all unused variables from a sequence file?

The TestStand Deployment Utility lets you select the following locations for the installation destinations of individual files:

 

File Installation Destination.png

 

However, you can select the following for the default installation base directory:

 

Default Installation Base Directory.png

 

It would be really nice if both lists of available installation locations were the same, both in terms of locations and naming conventions.  The most glaring omission in the file installation destination list is the Windows Volume location.

Sometimes it is useful to be able to search for instances of custom data types. Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be a way to do this in TestStand.  It would be really nice if you could search for instances of types in the Types window or perhaps through the Find/Replace utility:

 

Suggestion.png

 

Suggestion2.png

The TestStand search directories dialog appears to add and remove items by adding or removing entries to and from the TestExec.ini file directly.  This poses a problem because it isn't using the TestStand API to manipulate search directories.  This results in a difference in behavior between the API and the dialog.  In the case of the dialog, you can add search directory entries that don't exist (invalid paths) but with the API, you can't do so.  It would be really nice if either:

 

1. The search directory dialog used the TestStand API for adding and removing entries (so that there isn't a discrepancy in behavior)

2. The TestStand API allowed addition of non-existent (invalid) search directory paths

 

It is convenient for me to have search directory entries that are invalid so that my deployments will run on either Windows 7 or Windows XP rather than having to create a separate deployment for each operating system.  You can obviously do that through the TestStand search directories dialog.  However, that is not possible if you attempt to do it programmatically through the TestStand API.

 

In addition to using the search directories dialog, I also have a utility that can be used to programmatically modify the search directory entries.  Because the TestStand API throws errors if you try to add a search directory entry that is an invalid path, the utility often ends up modifying more than the user-requested changes (by being forced to remove invalid paths that were configured previously through the search directories dialog).

At our facility, we have a shared Users.ini file on a network that is used by all test systems in our entire organization (somewhere between 150 and 200 systems).  It contains hundreds of different users and many different user groups and its contents change frequently.  I recently upgraded to a newer version of TestStand and learned that a single Users.ini cannot be used by multiple versions of TestStand; it can only be used by the version of TestStand in which it was created (or saved, when upgrading).


This is problematic because it means I have to maintain multiple Users.ini files for the different versions of TestStand in use at my facility; whenever I need to make a user change, instead of changing it in one location, I have to make the same change in multiple Users.ini files.  Because there is a mixture of TestStand versions in use at my facility, it would be really nice if different versions of TestStand were able to use the same Users.ini file.