David_A_Moore

For any who are interested, we've added a new tool to the MGI library to make Unflatten from XML more robust. You can read about it here, download it within VIPM for free. It handles cluster and enum changes that are outside of classes without throwing errors so you can get more forwards and backwards compatibility.

SYRACUSE, Utah – April 1, 2008 -- MGI (NASDAQ: MGIROX, ↑ 23.67) announced today the release of the new and long-awaited Bezier Wiring Toolkit for LabVIEW. This fresh and innovative nugget of technology harnesses the power found in the research and discoveries of some French guy half a century ago.

LabVIEW developers have long had to deal with excessive delay in moving data around within virtual pathways called "wires". With data speeding down a wire on its way to some anxiously awaiting function, each and every femtosecond is like an eternity. Ninety-degree bends in wires require the data to slow down on approach in order to navigate the turn without hurtling off into the white oblivion of the Block Diagram. "It makes me sick just thinking about what that roller coaster ride must be like," stated David Moore, President of MGI. Once installed, the toolkit will jump into action and ease those rigid wiring course changes into Bezier curves that are smoother than a Y2K transition. Please see the accompanying graphics for a visual demonstration of the enhancement.

Ordinary straight wires force the data to slow down for every wire bend.

New improved spline wires allow the data to flow freely!

The impact of this new toolkit is expected to be felt immediately and internationally among all associated or not with the LabVIEW community. Enjoying the increase in his code's efficiency and, hence, some additional spare time, Rudy Saltmarsh, a Systems Integrator in urban Los Angeles, explained, "I had forgotten how nice it is to breathe in the outside air here." Lance Armstrong, another LabVIEW user who dabbles in cycling's Tour de France from time to time, had this to say, "Once I discovered the power of Bezier route enhancement, well, the rest is history. Paris never came into view on Day 23 with more ease and comfort than when I had implemented MGI's masterpiece." Hailing this release as both a technical breakthrough and a strategic move of genius from the crew at MGI, Jim Cramer of CNBC chimed in, "You've got a problem with my Bear-Stearns call? Take a number. Want the next really big one? It's right here. Booyah!"

Details on pricing and availability will be made available at the company's website (www.mooregoodideas.com) in the next few days.

About MGI

Experts in Warcraft and ping-pong, MGI is an industry leader in pretty much everything.

In response to some of the comments earlier, I decided we should post a BSD version of the Read/Write Anything and support VIs so that we wouldn't be preventing anyone from using them because of licensing concerns. Robert finally got around to tweaking the documentation, so the new versions are available from a link on the following page.

http://www.mooregoodideas.com/ReadWriteAnything.htm

Enjoy,

--David Moore

QUOTE(crelf @ Aug 13 2007, 12:18 PM)

A man after my own heart - I did a lot of experimental plasma physics after I left uni as a thin film scientist - TiN, TiAlN, etc. Welcome!

Don't all LAVA members do experimental plasma physics? That's what I got my Ph.D. in. Mine were pure electron plasmas.

--David

QUOTE(Puzzlemaker @ Aug 13 2007, 09:48 AM)

Well, no, because I have no idea how to even store them, and I haven't created all of them yet...

Puzzlemaker,

I think that you're getting ahead of yourself. Figure out how you're going to represent the data on wires first, then come back to the file representation, at which point the problem is probably clearer.

If you end up with some complex cluster (as most of us do) and it's going to be large, then check out the freeware http://www.mooregoodideas.com/ReadWriteAnything.htm' target="_blank">Read/Write Anything VIs that my company just released, which are a faster alternative to the OpenG Variant Configuration File VIs. Our library also has some VIs that helped me create a custom XML file using the Internet Toolkit.

--David Moore

Guys,

I know that you're LEGALLY right about this topic. Sorry I'm not going to accomodate those concerns in the version that I post on my website.

On the other hand, as I've said, I'd be happy to have any or all of the MGI freeware incorporated into OpenG, using a proper open source license for that version.

--David

QUOTE(jpdrolet @ Aug 3 2007, 05:42 PM)

OpenG Config VIs are only a variant wraparound vi.lib's Config VIs. I've benchmarked that the latter are the real performance hog, e.g. the data handling of keys and sections. I'll admit that the variant wraparound could benefit some performance optimization itself but it would be marginal unless the data handling kernel is improved.

Robert noted the same thing, so to optimize the Read Anything VI he found it best to read in the whole file at once with a standard file read and do all new parsing.

QUOTE(Tomi Maila @ Aug 3 2007, 04:15 PM)

I'm not sure the meaning of term freeware is legally clear.

Me neither, but since it seems to take eight pages of text that most everyone skips to make things legally clear, I refuse to play along.

I KNOW that the phrase "Do not remove this line" isn't legally clear or binding, but it should be clear enough to those who are trying to do the right thing.

Re Edit: Not taken as being critical. I'm just taking the chance to explain my micro-license with which I've been silently defying the world of long licenses for many years.

QUOTE(Tomi Maila @ Aug 3 2007, 04:02 PM)

Actually not having a license means that the the code is copyrighted by the authors and the authors have full rights to the stuff unless otherwise stated. Copying or using is not permitted without permission by the authors. A license loosens these legal conditions to allow other parties extended rights to the software. I didn't take a look if you actually have some sort of license or not. If you don't I would strongly recommend you to come up with some sort of license so that it's clear what the rights of the users are. You can give full rights away but you must explicitly state that in format that is legally binding.

Our freeware all says in the description:

Freeware from Moore Good Ideas, www.mooregoodideas.com. Do not remove this line.

No lawyers were consulted in the creation of that message as it seems to me to defeat the purpose (see Shakespeare, Henry VI).

QUOTE(crelf @ Aug 3 2007, 08:55 AM)

That most excellent that your pumping out new freeware :thumbup: That said, it might be even more valuable to the community if you also spent a little time improving the open source version - that's kinda what open source is about

When we started developing this we were hoping for 100% OpenG compatibility so that we could deliver it as a new rev of the OpenG VIs. That would be best for us since our existing projects, which use the OpenG VIs, wouldn't need to be modified to take advantage of the change. However,

Robert found important optimizations that required the file format to be different in some cases, so we dropped OpenG compatibility in favor of performance. Given the file incompatibility, we think that both sets of VIs need to exist with unique names, and we're only going to be using these VIs on new projects.

So, we have spent time improving the open source VIs, in this case by completely rewriting them, and the result is new open source VIs, which we have called freeware since it doesn't even include an open source license. We've also talked with Jim K. a few times to say that anything from the MGI library can get rolled into the OpenG world, but we're planning to keep putting out the freeware versions as an MGI .ogp file. Free The Software!

Fellow Wireworkers,

Are your bags all packed for NI Week? I'm skipping it this year, but my

employee, Robert Mortensen will be there. He's also the author of what I

think is an extremely useful new bit of freeware from Moore Good Ideas,

the Read and Write Anything VIs. They do pretty much what the OpenG Variant

config file VIs do, which MGI finds extremely useful, but can do it up

to 500x faster! That should open up a whole new range of applications

beyond just small config files. There's lots of additional info on

the MGI web site, www.mooregoodideas.com. Feel free to bug Robert at

NI Week with any questions as well.

Enjoy!

--David Moore

Jim,

I wish the last question was checkboxes instead of a choice. I navigate several ways equally.

--Dave