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LuaVIEW going into the next round
Posted by
rolfk
,
30 July 2012
·
920 views
LuaVIEW text script external code
I've been working on and off on getting the next version of LuaVIEW ready for a release. While there has been little change on LuaVIEW for several years, it was done well enough to only cause a few minor issue on the most recent LabVIEW versions. Issues that in itself did not require a new LuaVIEW release.
But there have been a lot of new feature requests from various directions over the years and so at the end of 2011 we decided that a new major release was justified to bring some of those features to current and new applications using LuaVIEW.
Feature requests that we have received over the last few years include support for running Lua scripts on NI realtime targets, as well as full support for LabVIEW for Windows 64 Bit and LabVIEW for Intel Macs.
Some voiced concerns about the fact that LuaVIEW was using a CIN to implement its core functionality and NI might be discontinuing CIN support at some point altogether. And indeed, while the latest version of LabVIEW for Windows 32 Bit still supports loading CINS developed in earlier versions of LabVIEW, NI never released any support for creating CINs for realtime platforms (except the Pharlap ETS based ones which use simply the LabVIEW for Windows 32 Bit CIN), as well as LabVIEW for Windows 64 Bit, and LabVIEW for Intel Macs. So moving to a shared library based LuaVIEW backend got an important step.
Other requests where support for running Lua binary modules such as LuaCom for interfacing to ActiveX or LuaInterface for interfacing to .Net as well as a possibility to access NI-VISA and DAQmx functionality directly from inside a Lua script, without having to create a module interface in the LabVIEW VI to relay the API calls to the according LabVIEW nodes.
I’m excited to announce that we are now in the final stages of testing and finalizing a package for the Beta of LuaVIEW 2.0B1.
This new release has a number of changes to the previous release but efforts have been made to keep it as compatible as possible to the last LuaVIEW release.
Following characteristics are valid for this release:
If no serious problems are found during the Beta test, the 2.0 release version is expected to be released around end of August.
The release version will include runtime support for LabVIEW for Mac OS X and NI realtime systems (cRIO and Pharlap ETS). It will also include a binary module to access NI-VISA directly from within a Lua script for at least Windows (for other OSes we are looking at the options and needed effort). A link library for Windows will allow linking your own binary modules to be included in LuaVIEW, by replacing the lua51.lib file in the linking stage of the binary module with the luaview.lib file.
To receive a download link to the Beta package please send me a pm and specify which LabVIEW version and OS you plan to use with this Beta.
But there have been a lot of new feature requests from various directions over the years and so at the end of 2011 we decided that a new major release was justified to bring some of those features to current and new applications using LuaVIEW.
Feature requests that we have received over the last few years include support for running Lua scripts on NI realtime targets, as well as full support for LabVIEW for Windows 64 Bit and LabVIEW for Intel Macs.
Some voiced concerns about the fact that LuaVIEW was using a CIN to implement its core functionality and NI might be discontinuing CIN support at some point altogether. And indeed, while the latest version of LabVIEW for Windows 32 Bit still supports loading CINS developed in earlier versions of LabVIEW, NI never released any support for creating CINs for realtime platforms (except the Pharlap ETS based ones which use simply the LabVIEW for Windows 32 Bit CIN), as well as LabVIEW for Windows 64 Bit, and LabVIEW for Intel Macs. So moving to a shared library based LuaVIEW backend got an important step.
Other requests where support for running Lua binary modules such as LuaCom for interfacing to ActiveX or LuaInterface for interfacing to .Net as well as a possibility to access NI-VISA and DAQmx functionality directly from inside a Lua script, without having to create a module interface in the LabVIEW VI to relay the API calls to the according LabVIEW nodes.
I’m excited to announce that we are now in the final stages of testing and finalizing a package for the Beta of LuaVIEW 2.0B1.
This new release has a number of changes to the previous release but efforts have been made to keep it as compatible as possible to the last LuaVIEW release.
Following characteristics are valid for this release:
- LabVIEW 7.1 or newer
- Uses Lua 5.1.5 as Lua engine (LuaVIEW 1.2.x used Lua 5.0.3)
- The core library has been changed into a DLL/shared library
- Supports LabVIEW for Linux x86, Windows x86 and x64
- Distributed as OpenG package, can be installed with the OpenG package installer or with VIPM
If no serious problems are found during the Beta test, the 2.0 release version is expected to be released around end of August.
The release version will include runtime support for LabVIEW for Mac OS X and NI realtime systems (cRIO and Pharlap ETS). It will also include a binary module to access NI-VISA directly from within a Lua script for at least Windows (for other OSes we are looking at the options and needed effort). A link library for Windows will allow linking your own binary modules to be included in LuaVIEW, by replacing the lua51.lib file in the linking stage of the binary module with the luaview.lib file.
To receive a download link to the Beta package please send me a pm and specify which LabVIEW version and OS you plan to use with this Beta.
