ShaunR

For a while now I've been mulling over a gap in what I see as software in general. This has nothing to do with LabVIEW, per se, but it is the reason we need CLAs and System Engineers to translate what the customer wants into what the customer gets. A good example of this is the CLA exam. There, we have a well written, detailed requirements specification and a human has to translate that into some "stuff" that another engineer will then code. So why do we need an engineer to translate what amounts to pseudo code in to LabVIEW code? Maybe 10-15 years ago (before scripting was a twinkle in the milkman's eye), I had a tool that would scan word documents and output a text file with function names, parameters and comments and this would be the basis for the detailed design specification. I would create requirements for the customer with meetings and conversations and generate a requirements specification that they could sign off in Microsoft Word. Unbeknownst to the customer, it had some rather precise formatting and terminology. It required prose such as "boolean control" and "Enumerated Indicator" It also had bold and italic items that had specific meaning - bold was a control/indicator name. Italic was a function or state . It was basically pseudo code with compiler directives hidden in the text. Roll forward a few years and people were fastidious about getting CLD and CLA status. Not being one of those I looked at the CLD exam and saw that a big proportion of the scoring was non functional. By that I mean making sure hints and descriptions are filled in etc - you know, the stuff we don't actually do in real life. So I wrote a script that read the exam paper (after exporting to text), pulled out all the descriptions and filled in all the hints, labels and descriptions. It would probably take 5-10 minutes recreating it in an exam but ensure 100% of the score for that part of the test (this later became Passa Mak, by the way). So that got me thinking, once again, about the CLA exam and the gap in technology between specification and code. I have a script that takes a text file and modifies some properties and methods. It's not a great leap to actually scripting the "stuff" instead of modifying its properties. I don't have the Word code anymore, but should be able to recreate it and instead of spitting out functions, I could actually script the code. We could compile a requirements specification! If not to a fully working program, at least so that an engineer could code the details. Doesn't that describe the CLA exam? So I looked at an example CLA exam. Woohoo. Precise formatting already .......to be continued.

Watch out for the backporting updates for the Windows 10 spyware telemetry!

Instead of trying to replace the AsynCall. what about replacing the static reference with your xnode so it produces the correct ref type? You'd only have to react to the VI drop.

You have the skills for a VIM, though

libvlc-new-always-return-null

Oh yes. Nearly forgot Here is the TCP Telemetry VI that fits in that space on the main diagram that I spoke about in the other thread. TELEMETRY.vi Just drag the VI from explorer and plonk it in the gap in the services-job done. (I suggest you place the VI itself in with the rest of the subsystems, but it's not a requirement for it to work). Whats that? It doesn't work? It doesn't do anything? Aha! That's because you haven't connected to it. Oh, alright then. Here's a simple client to make a connection. Run it and see the candy. TCPIP Telemetry Client.vi

Nice. Now if only VIMs could do that There was a dependency on an OpenG function. I've replaced it with a native LabVIEW one. SREventXnode.zip Are you thinking about putting the xnode in the CR?

This seems to work with a standard user on Windows 7/8 but like I said. Your mileage may vary. What windows are you using?

2009. Sheesh. Its true what they say about software - you support it for life I had a query to ask if I had the 64 bit version of Diskinfo. I didn't because it was written in Delphi 7 which only had a 32 bit compiler. but I did pull out the WMI part from another of my little side projects and recreated DiskInfo (for 32 and 64 bit Windoze) . Your mileage may vary. Have fun.

And just to follow on from Rolph wise words. If you are using LabVIEW x32, you don't care about 64 bit DLLs because you can't use them and yes, you are fine working with the 32 bit DLL in 32 bit LabVIEW on a 64 bit Windows machine.. It just if you are developing DLLs that it is a. consideration because if you supply only a 32 bit DLL, people with 64 bit LabVIEW can't load the DLL in a CLFN. As to where to place them. Well. I place them where I damn well choose and always in the same directory as the application and with my own name (usually namex32.dll and namex64.dll if they have to coexist) because, well, it just save lots of hassle with DLL hell.

That's the 32 bit directory on a Win64 platform. What is the LabVIEW bitness that you created the Executable with?

LabVIEW 32 bit can only load 32 bit dlls regardless of your platform bitness - although you can't install LabVIEWx64 on Win32. You don't need two computers, you need two LabVIEW versions to compile both 32 and 64 bit executables that will then use the 32 and 64 bit dll respectively. That's why we use the conditional disable because only the end developers' (not the end users') bitness counts for when they compile the executable. Bottom line: Executables are either 64 OR 32 bit and each can only use the corresponding DLLs.of that bitness For the OP. I expect the paths are not what you're expecting them to be or you are missing some dependencies of the DLL.

Send doesn't always sit in a Top level VI that has meaning at the system level. You can send a message from much further down or higher up the hierarchy whereas Get always sits in the top level VI of a service and there is only one of that service type (you can have sub services, i.e. turtles all the way down , but we'll leave that for now - it's a semantic segregation). The VI name is always the Service Name (FILE.vi and SOUND.vi in this case) and anyone can send a message to a service even from another machine and even using non LabVIEW software (you just need some sort of TCP/UDP Service - I use a websocket one ) The sender is just a label that can be used for anything you like (filtering events and debugging usually) but by convention I use the Process Name or IP address. An important distinction is that the SENDER field does not dictate the return path!. You may notice that the SENDER for MAIN.vi is actually called "UI" rather confusingly. That is because it used to be the UI - nobody is perfect The beauty is, though, I only have to do a text search and replace (apart from with arrays, it seems) and its all fixed with no recoding/relinking at all Can a mod move this and the few previous ones to another thread, say, "VIM Demo-HAL"? so as not to pollute this thread too much? We are way off the OP now

Yes. I say that in this post but if VIMs ever get released, it would be nice if they did it so we didn't have to go through the Xnode madness or my old school way. I have demonstrated the use case with some pretty eye candy so hopefully it sticks in someones mind when/if they think about productionising VIMs After all. VIMs are Xnodes already (\resource\XMacro.xnode if you want to hack )

You mean it worked? Probably not as hard or as much work as may be thinking. There is really nothing complicated or hidden in there and its only 1.5MB excluding the wav files. The message library is only about 150K so all the code is for doing something and doing anything that manipulates the UI in LabVIEW always makes it look complicated . There is an empty place where the "Services" icons are in the Main.vi and if you look at previous images you will see a TCPIP icon that goes there. Since you got it up and running; do you want me to post the Telemetry service? Maybe this should go in another thread or the uncertified CR because it is 99% application and 1% VIM I notice this a lot with later LabVIEW versions regardless of application. It's like the compiler seems to decide that the VI really does need some more recompiling when you run it.I don't think it is specific to VIMs. Thanks. It will be interesting to see if it is the version that is the reason for the breakages and a lot of the "issues" or it is down to the object cache. If it is the latter, then the versions you supplied will also be broken. I can use the VIM on all versions on multiple machines but sometimes it breaks. If someone from NI decides to have a play maybe they can figure out a workaround Two reasons. Neither are set in stone and mainly due to my programming style. Put them outside if you wish. I would normally put both in a sub VI (look inside the get VI) so that get refnum and Generate event is a single VI, drop in replacement, for the Generate primitive. As I said before, The "Name" is preventing me from doing that and I'm still umming and arring about it because I don't like that it is not a single VI. It annoys me enough that I keep the "Name" unbundle even though I could make it a separate terminal on the "type VI" to remove it, It keeps me thinking about how to get rid of it.as it is a blight in all VIs I have to work on The whole point of my implementations is that you can put them anywhere - pretty much care free - so you can reduce wires. So they are placed where they make the diagram look cleaner (to me). Optimization is one of the last processes to be preformed in a development and arguable whether needed at all for demos.

Attached is a demo using the VIM events. It works pretty well, when it works, but the VIM technology is far from production ready as we were warned.. If you don't see any broken arrows, don't go changing anything until you've run it . You will probably find there are no icons where the VIM should be but don't let that put you off. If you have broken arrows then you will have to go around re-attaching the VIM to the events. Sometimes event names get detached, especially when you are changing the VIM. It gets very confused which instances are attached to what so you have to beat it into submission There are two demos. One is just a few of the events in while loops that exercise the event VIM - you have seen the diagram already in a previous post. The other is a fun demo that may or may not work for you out-of-the-box (make sure the sound is on ). VIM Msg Example.zip

+ and - primitives use the compound arithmetic node, IIRC. I expect you set the first terminal to invert? What do we win if we get it right?

You know you only have 1 month to revert back if you decide you don't like the upgrade, don't you?

That's what I mean by the Channel Wires are in the wrong "View". It think also there is also a bit of imagineering going on too. Usually when we talk about cross platform we simply mean that code can run on another platform. LabVIEW is a cross platform programming language in that it runs on Windows, Linux and a whole host of other platforms. ,Cross platform compilers etc I wouldn't be surprised if cross platform just means it will be supported in the others in the same way that some property nodes are applicable in one platform but not another. I'd like to think that it is the start of a new technology that means we can control other machines just by looking at them and thinking really hard, though

It's difficult to know where to start with Windows 10. People are reporting that its background processes ARE malware

I'll answer #1, # 2 seems like a particular implementation issue. To encapsulate events, you need a way to share the reference. Since wires will not be passed, we need a way of identifying a particular event refnum and storing it where all instances of the VIM can retrieve it. Normally you could just use a normal VI or DVR with a feedback node or shift register for memory, and a case statement to make it self intialising - VIs that are not set to re-entrant are singletons. This is how LV2Globals work. VIMs are pre-allocated re-entrant, though. Even if you set the VI property to not be; it just gets ignored. So you can't use a feedback node (or shift register) as it will only exist for that instance. We want grab a single event ref wherever we plonk the VIM in whatever VI we choose. So we use a single element queue to provide a named memory storage for the event renum. We can then retrieve the event refnum by peeking, that is, reading without destroying, the refnum. We use named queues to make named events that work in re-entrant VIs because we are retrieving by name, not by instance.

Oh yes. does anyone know the frequencies and durations to play the A-Team theme tune with the Beep VI?

Yup. You've got it. I prefer to keep the generator separate because the register does some intelligent naming which could impact fast generation of events. It may be a personal preference, but I think I prefer less ambiguity between grabbing an event and generating one. I'd be shooting myself in the foot more often than not One thing that we can't get is the name from a connecting control the same way the queues and events do.An xnode would probably be able to get it but I settled on an old method of using a VI as a control and having a "name" field - a poor mans type-def.. It requires unbundling so it's not as concise but acceptably verbose, I think. I did think about putting it inside the Macro but didn't want to start making "special use" rules. This way its clear whats going on, IMO. Below is a demo use case showing one of the sybsystems (ACQUIRE) and one of its listeners (in Main UI). My architecture has queues in and events out so the Get and Send is a queue. That probably won't get replaced by a macro as it needs to be able to send a single command or an array of commands. For that, you need different diagrams and a polymorphic VI is more appropriate. So far. All the messaging, subsystems, user interfaces and project libraries are ~700 KB.

Then use SQLite. It's a file based full ACID compliant SQL database-no TCP connections, no servers, no IT, no hassle. You can abuse that instead and update the other local DB as you see fit.You could even use the same schema and just export the SQL to the other local database.