Teststand lite

[Spectre_Dave]

Is there any thought on develping  TestStand Lite?

TestStand is wonderfully complex - if you need all of that flexibility.  We  use it as is a basic sequencing engine and it is hard to justify the cost for such a basic program. 

We are releasing production test code for a low volume high mix environment. All of the test code is written in LabVIEW and is structured as reusable test blocks with xml files as the test configuration files.

It would be nice to have a Full TestStand and a Professional TestStand.

[PhillipBrooks]

This has been discussed a few times on the LAVA forums:

http://forums.lavag.org/TestStand-Lite-t6089.html

http://forums.lavag.org/LabPython-and-LuaVIEW-revisited-t3319.html

I interviewed a year or so ago with ARC Technology Solutions in Manchester, NH and they were preparing to release a reusable test executive that was descibed as a lite version of TestStand; you might contact them or check their web site to see if they released anything...

[Santiago D]

Thank you for your feedback about TestStand! At the current moment, National Instruments has no plans for developing a 'lite' version of TestStand. TestStand allows you to build your own sequence editors, and you could design your own version of the sequence editor with any programming language.

We have had a few requests for a less feature-rich version of TestStand. What specifically were you looking to add, remove, or modify? What would be the most important features to have?

I would also like to open up this thread to anyone else who would be interested in commenting on what they would like to see in a TestStand Lite.

Santiago D

National Instruments

[Spectre_Dave]

Santiago

We use TestStand as a Sequencing Engine only.   We call LabVIEW modules that perform all of the testing. We do not use the report generation nor the database connectivity. We have created a Custom LabVIEW Operator interface - but that seems silly: LabVIEW calling TestStand which calls LabVIEW.

[Joe_H]

Hey Dave, I do not know if you know this or not but NI is coming out with a LV Test Executive. It is on the beta site and on the web. Looks pretty nice.

[Santiago D]

Joe,

To my knowledge, National Instruments doesn't have any plans to develop a LabVIEW Test Executive in addition to the LabVIEW Test Executive Toolkit.  The LabVIEW Test Executive Toolkit is obsolete due to its lack of support for LabVIEW 8.5 and later.

I also looked at the NI beta site [http://www.ni.com/beta] and could not find a reference to a LabVIEW Test Executive.

Could you please let us know where you found the references to the release of the LabVIEW Test Executive?

Santiago D

[Joe_H]

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Santiago D wrote:

Joe,

To my knowledge, National Instruments doesn't have any plans to develop a LabVIEW Test Executive in addition to the LabVIEW Test Executive Toolkit.  The LabVIEW Test Executive Toolkit is obsolete due to its lack of support for LabVIEW 8.5 and later.

I also looked at the NI beta site [http://www.ni.com/beta] and could not find a reference to a LabVIEW Test Executive.

Could you please let us know where you found the references to the release of the LabVIEW Test Executive?

Santiago D

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Sorry, my mistake It is now called Unit Test Framework. It is included in the LabVIEW beta. Go sign up for the beta and install the software.

[Dennis_Knutson]

It's for sale here and useful for software validation.

[Elijah_K]

The Unit Test Framework is designed to automate functional validation of software against requirements.  It does not offer the functionality needed for sequencing tests of hardware as a test executive and should not be regarded as 'TestStand Lite'.  For example, you cannot pass a reference to a hardware device through multiple tests, you cannot sequence tests in a specific order, and you cannot change the sequence order based upon test results.

If you have requirements for how code should behave with certain stimuli, the Unit Test Framework will automate the tast of running these tests on a regular basis during development, testing and integration.  This is particularly important in highly regulated environments where the software is scrutinized for quality and safety.  This is increasingly true of the code being used in automated test systems for critical devies. In many cases, it makes sense to use the Unit Test Framework with TestStand to verify that the test steps behave as expected.

[Norbert_B]

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VADave wrote:
[...] but that seems silly: LabVIEW calling TestStand which calls LabVIEW.[...]

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Well, since you cannot call TestStand directly, that's the way it works.... of course, you can alternativly use C#, CVI or VB to create your frontend as well. Or use those mentioned programming languages to implement yourr test modules...

TestStand is a pure ActiveX Server and cannot be used except by specifically created UIs....

hope this helps,

Norbert 

Message Edited by Norbert B on 03-04-2009 09:00 AM