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Build .sql File button should work

TestStand Taskbar Jump List

When I get called to look at an issue that has occurred with a test, the account logged into TestStand is typically a restricted user (i.e. Operator). Since the Operator account has very limited options, in order to really do much immediate troubleshooting I need to stop the test and re-run it in the Administrator account. At best this is inconvenient and inefficient if the spot the error occurred is late in the test. However, it is extremely frustrating when it's an intermittent run-time error and I can't do any real-time debug because Operator is logged in. The only real alternative I can think of (when the problem is intermittent) is to leave it logged in as Administrator so I can debug whenever it happens to occur. This is not really an acceptable practice in most cases.

It would be fantastic if there were an override that let's an Administrator provide the proper credentials to perform the desired task that would normally be off-limits to the Operator. The basic premise of this suggestion is similar to the functionality within Windows; if you try to connect to a secured location or perform a task that requires administrator privileges, a dialog box pops up asking you to enter authorized credentials.

I run into many situations where I wish this feature was present. The issue is not always within TestStand (could be a database connection issue, etc.), but it is TestStand that throws the error and in Operator mode the only option is "Run Cleanup". Significant time, effort, frustration, and efficiency could be saved if I could simply enter my credentials as an administrator to perform the tasks I need to do.

Regards

On an unrelated side note, I find it humorous that "TestStand" is considered a misspelled word when using the forum spell checker. 🙂

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I find myself creating arrays alot and I usually have the array already made in excel or note pad or another type of file in which the list might be around 20 or more entries. Now in the past I've come up with a simple way to import the arrayed data from a file, but however i don't believe everyone is doing this and generally I don't need the file in which gets imported (usually a simpler version of the master). So i suggest could we add the support to copy from excel or from notepad and paste special into an array.

Conclusion:

This idea might not be the best, fastest, or easiest way to import arrays from other programs, but the idea would be to find an easy way to import arrays.

Thanks,

Support Unicode

Right now, you really can't reliably use anything other than a basic ASCII character set in TestStand, which means that some SI units (such as ohms) cannot be represented in their preferred way (with an omega). It also means that you can't put non-english characters in your sequence file and reliably have them show up if your sequence file is opened on a different computer with a different language localization (which causes a huge problem if your customer demands support for non-English languages, and has more than one site -- that speaks a different language -- around the world).

Make TestStand support Unicode, so we can use the full greek character set for things like units, and so we can type characters from any language in our sequence files, and not have them change to a different character if we open them on a computer with a different localization.

Parameter Array

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Expression Variables

I was in the middle of creating an ugly expression that was parsing a string and building a file path from other standard file paths and realized that I can clean up the expressing by creating a few local variables. But then I thought do I really want to create these local variables in my sequence that only exist for the purpose of this one expression. Then I thought, what if I can define a variable within the expression itself, kind of how a variable is defined in C or something similar. It only exists during the evaluation of the expression.

Hello,

Today the UUT container and other Socket important informations are only available at run time and using long expressions.

The access to these properties is not valid ate edit time but will be valid only at runtime.

It would be nice to give a rapid access to these informations using a kind of direct pointer access.

Something like this would be nice ...

CurrentSocket.UUT
CurrentSocket.Error...
CurrentSocket.Status
CurrentSocket.reportText

Using always existing properties would also be nice, in order to use Expression intellisense !

Thanks a lot.

Manu.

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currently the behavior of the date function is (1) get a short ("MM/DD/YYYY") or long form date string ("Weekday, Month D, YYYY")with nice easy boolean input, (2) pass it N local variables to get all the discrete parts and assemble it myself with a bit of STR() and concatenation.

could we create a permutation on this date() function, (does one already exist) so that I can just pass it a %<> syntax string and have it format the current date to my desired format?

specifically, I'm looking for a non painful way of building a "YYYY-MM-DD" style string for a report (or even just DD/MM/YYY) without having to lug around 8 locals and a lengthly expression, or call into a LV VI.

We have basic string format symbols available for the STR and VAL functions, why not for date? if anything passing this 1 parameter might save alot of folks creating a bunch of locals because they can just ask for the time item they want directly, and then VAL() the output text to get the numeric data if they need it?

it'd be awesome if the function supported standard DB format tags such as (http://www.w3schools.com/sql/func_date_format.asp) or failing that, was consistent with what LabVIEW's time format strings were.

Just a thought. Has anyone worked around this in a reasonable way?

--Elaine R.

Rendezvous Increment/Decrement size

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Some test sequencing tools incorporate the idea of configuration based variant handling, where you could define different test variants (e.g. testing at ambient temperature, hot, cold), each variant having it's own set of test limits.

Individual test steps can then be assigned to the previously defined variants. By chossing the desired test variant, the according steps will be executed without having the need to implement additional logic within the sequence.

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When LV throws an error, it's all very easy to catch via callback and/or is auto propigated through the system to Runstate.SequenceError etc.so it can be detected.

When LV throws a warning... the data doesn't seem to go much of anywhere in TS... and unlike LV it doesn't propigate from step to step either.

I'd like to catch and log these warnings in my error handlers (naturally with different logic, but I don't want to lose the data either, it's important sometimes!)

from poking around, it looks like my options are:

(1) creating a custom steptype wrapper around all LabVIEW step calls,

(2) editing each VI called by TS manually

(3) some fun expression(s) in the 'add additional result' or 'post expressions' sectionsof each LV step, to create new variables in TS on the fly... (or using a post-step callback to do the same)

It would be nice if the LV adapter / LV steptypes had some native way of catching this 'almost error' behavior and getting it into the report at least. I don't know if leaning on the error callback is the right answer, since, afterall, these aren't errors... but having a warning callback feels too LV specific...

How about a checkbox in the LV adapter, where you could specify 'treat warnings like errors' and then in the Error callback you could check to see if the bool was false, and punt as desired?

Is there something I'm not seeing that would be a better solution?

--Elaine R.

It is really easy to get a user in system by name via the current API methods

User = Engine.GetUser("loginName")

but if you want to (A) delete that user, or (B) update values related to that user (password/fullname/loginname) there feels like an unnecessary number of hoops that must be vaulted through related to digging through UserFile->userList->AsPropertyObject-> Get/SetPropertyObjectByOffset()

in both cases, I'm obliged to loop through the userList to find the element I want, and then fetch/set/delete it.

I would love if there was some shortcut in the API to take on this chore for me in a more efficient manner. Something as simple as:

index = Engine.GetUserIndex("loginName")

would match behavior that already exists with Sequences and Steps so that I can efficiently know what array element I want to interact with based on the current name.

or if we wanted to get fancy we could have an:

success = Engine.UpdateUser("loginName", UpdatedUser obj)

function that would go all the way and actually take a replacement user object and do the array overwrite & save the file for me... but I'd be content to do that myself if there was just an easier way to get the information I wanted in/out of the userlist having to maintain my own search list for users in memory feels tedious. We already have GetStepIndex() and GetSequenceIndex(), so why not one for users too?

--Elaine R.

NI TestStand Idea Exchange

Build .sql File button should work

Launch adapter configuration dialog box from a double click on respective adapter icon in Insertion Palette (present above Step Types list)

Expose the sequence file version number to be visible in the file properties.

TestStand Taskbar Jump List

Implement "Administrator Override" option

Create a way to use the find/replace tool to select actual steps in the TestStand sequence editor instead of just listing matching text values in the find window

Copy and Paste from other programs into Arrays

Support Unicode

Parameter Array

Code Module Filepaths in TestStand Workspace

Expression Variables

Easy access to UUT container, Sequence status ... using a CurrentSocket container !

Date() / time() functions could allow for different desired formats as a parameter rather than returning N local variables

Rendezvous Increment/Decrement size

Include Bare bones operator interface example

Feature request: display sequence file version in the main window of the sequence editor

Simplfied handling of different test variants

Feature upgrade: Property Loader: Loading from excel files: Ability to load data from different sheets.

A way to trap LabVIEW Warning data the same as LabVIEW Error Data from Steps

Add new API for Engine.GetUserIndex("loginName") or Engine.UpdateUser("loginName", User obj)