Michael Aivaliotis

I just wanted to give you all notice that the LAVA website will be going through an upgrade process within the next couple weeks. I don't know for sure when. But if you suddenly see things looking very different, then it's because of this upgrade. Some people will love the changes while others will hate them. The nature of LAVA is not changing. Just the code that LAVA runs on. LAVA will still be free and ad-sponsored and all of that good stuff is staying the same. So if you see problems and things that look out of place. Or if you just want to voice your opinion. Let me know in the comments below.

I suggest changing your workflow. Do all your work in virtual machines. Each virtual machine is one project. So switching between projects means, switching virtual machines. This is what I've been doing for over 10 years now and I'm a more sane person because of it. I still use VIPM because it's the quickest way to install a bunch of tools for a project. But after my tools and libraries are installed. I'm done. When I worked at JKI (a year and a half ago), I was involved with VIPM product management and development on a daily basis. At the time, I considered many new features. Allowing installation of packages inside custom project directories was on the roadmap. Mainly because, as a product manager. You do product marketing. It's what you do. And the product marketing told me that a growing number of customers wanted this. The trick is. How do you expose these two different workflows in your product? On the one hand, you install in this global location. And on the other, you install under a project folder. How about a combination of both? How is this information presented to the end user and how do you make sense of it all? And this is just the tip of the iceberg. There are several other consequences that ripple out from this, that I won't get into. When VIPM came out over a decade ago, only a few in the minority knew what reuse meant in the context of LabVIEW. Some would argue that people still don't know how to do reuse in LabVIEW. So VIPM not only had to survive as a product but also JKI had to educate the population on how to do reuse. In this context, it was best to keep a single workflow and be consistent: Reuse libraries start off as source code. Which can use any SCC technology. You do a "build" of the reuse library into a package. You install the packaged VIs into LabVIEW You use (link to) the installed VIs in your project source. Which also uses SCC. In order to change the reuse library, you must go back to step 1. Make a change, commit to SCC and then go to step 2, etc. It works. It really does. Whether you like it or not, is a different story. VIPM works the way it does because LabVIEW works the way it does. All of the VI libraries and add-ons that install with LabVIEW are beneath LabVIEW. If you open a VI, it automatically links to stuff beneath LabVIEW. For a newbie, this is great. But for someone who wants strict control of their code, this is a nightmare. VIPM provides a solution within this existing operating framework and does a great job. VIPM promotes and encourages the guidelines set forth by NI. As Rolf mentioned. LabVIEW projects (folder of VIs) now work in the context of LVPROJ and LVLIB files. This has fundamentally changed the world that VIPM works within. Over the years VIPM has adapted to this change. But even with these changes. The fundamental concept of reuse libraries has remained unchanged within LabVIEW. You can't "install" VI-based libraries in different project contexts. So in addition to asking for a VIPM alternative. You should also be asking NI to change how LabVIEW handles reuse code. PS: It's nice to see discussions have finally shifted from. Why should we do reuse? to How can we do reuse better?

All the OpenG stuff is now handled by this forum.

Does anyone have a solution to detecting where a drop occurred on a target tree control? I'm already familiar with the 'Point to Row Column' method. However, that only returns the row of the item you mouse is hovering over during the drop. See, when a user moves his mouse around, a line is shown exactly where the insert will occur. However this line location, between rows, is not available from what i can see. Regardless of where the line is drawn, the 'Point to Row Column' method returns the mouse hover location instead.

Perhaps there's an error generated somewhere that i can probe?

This is is LabVIEW 2015. Haven't tried in other versions but I assume it also fails as badly since it's not really a LV2015 feature. Here's my dialog configuration: Basically what happens most of the time is it just creates the property folder and 2 read\write VIs that are incompletely scripted: I have to remove the property folder and the VIs from the class and redo the dialog. Sometimes 3-4 times before it finally works. There doesn't seem to be a pattern to this. Has anyone else experienced this? if so, I guess I should report it to NI. If this is already mentioned on another thread, then sorry for the noise.

Still looking for more door prizes. Please post here if your company will offer a door prize.

Early-Bird pricing ends this Friday. Buy Now!

I think we need to make this our theme song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GzZezqJ9VgI Full Song:

Greetings Friends of LAVA, colleagues, cohorts, and Wireworkers Extraordinaire -- it's LAVA BBQ time! click here >> LAVA BBQ 2015 Event Page: Register and purchase tickets (Show us the ticket code on your phone when you arrive or print it out) Date: Tuesday, August 04, 2015 Time: 7:00-10:00pm (after the NIWeek Block Diagram Party) Location: Scholz Garten, 1607 San Jacinto Blvd, Austin, TX 78701 (1 mile from Convention Center) Cost: $30 Early Bird (until July 17th) $35 Regular Admission (Until Aug 3rd) $40 At the door (Aug 4th) Meal Options: Standard meal is your choice of brisket, ribs, or chicken, with sides of beans, cole slaw, and potato salad. A vegetarian option is available to select during registration on the event page. Cash bar. Who: Everyone is welcome, including spouses traveling with you. Even if it’s your first time, expect to recognize many faces/names from the forums and NI R&D. What to wear: It’s an outdoor venue in Austin during August. So dress for the weather and comfort. Door Prizes: Towards the end of the event, we will have a raffle to give away prizes. All attendees are eligible and will receive a raffle ticket upon entry. Do you want to sponsor a door prize? - Continue Reading: If you or your company want to sponsor the LAVA 2015 BBQ door prize, please post a reply below. You can also include a small blurb about your company and a link to your website in the post below. By donating a prize you and your company will receive a small announcement of your choosing, during the event. We will ask you to write the announcement on a post-it note and will attach it to the prize to be read before awarding it. We would prefer a single item donation. If donating more than one item, then multiple identical items is preferred. If donating non-tangible items or something that is not physically with you. Then please bring a card with your contact info and instructions on how to collect the prize. This will be given to the winner. All prizes are acceptable except those listed below (examples from last year): Not recommended: Apparel (hats, t-shirts, underwear etc) Branded “trade show booth” type giveaways (mouse pads, pens, keychains etc) Software licenses (Toolkits, add-ons, Labview) Jokes or something meant as a gag and not a real prize. Hope to see you there! Chime in once you buy tickets to let everyone know you're coming.

You can find the labview installed versions in the Windows registry. You can find the VI Server ports in the ini files for those labview versions. It's all there.

They'll be back soon. Not forgotten. Just on a break until I can reorganize my life so I can fit it in again. A major change happened where I'm now an independant consultant. So now any free time I had before is diverted to billable time. I need to change that. I'm a work in progress.

So I understand your view. Anything paid for is elitism?

Good points. NI came up with the CLA certification program so they can do with it what they want right? It just so happens that in order to become a CLA, it implies a certain level of effort and commitment to the language. Also a certain level of experience. So naturally the CLA summit draws presenters at a higher level. So the presentations are of higher quality. - usually. But that's no guarantee. Hey Mike, why don't you and I organize our own summit?

I don't have a problem paying for stuff that adds value to my personal growth and also conveniently allows me to avoid traveling to Austin in August. Content doesn't only come from NI BTW. We all have it in us to present our knowledge and experience to the masses. Not having a venue isn't an excuse anymore. Now that the platforms are free and open to all. Go for it. NI of course has incentive to do it. But I'm sure there are many local LabVIEW user groups across the world with presentations that never see the light of day outside of the 4 walls of those meeting rooms. - right?

There is also one other aspect to the CLA content not mentioned. I think Aristos Queue touched on this. The fact that content is not made widely accessible allows NI staff to be more candid and open about ideas and have discussions that could not happen in a public forum. I'd hate to lose that.

I hope my personal record stands clear that I am a huge fan of giving away content away freely and am very community focussed. So don't take this the wrong way. Of course the content creators are free to do so as they please with their content. I'm not arguing against that at all. I wish more content creators would push their stuff online, but that's another discussion. NI has chosen to make the summit a special event, that is compelling enough that non-CLAs put extra effort into becoming certified just to attend the event. If you could get the content freely, then the certification has less value. This year, there was a lot of effort made to restructure the organization of it, so it's better managed. But I think this value statement remains. Again, NI could re-think their approach to this in the future. Perhaps if all the CLAs signed a petition and voted for it, then NI would do so? We all have a voice. How do other CLAs feel about this? Now for those that are CLAs and could not attend in person. Then an argument could be made for providing access to the content in a private way. However, one reason this hasn't happened is because it requires an investment in backend systems and people to make it work. We tried this last year and it was a fail. The best solution is still to have a camera and a tripod in the room. However, the private video distribution is problematic. These are solvable problems but require resource commitments. NI should just pay Mark and buy extra equipment to support him. Then have their internal web team add a special page on the CLA community to host the videos. It can be done. BTW, privately listed Youtube videos work as advertized. I've used this feature many times. So this videos can be embedded in the CLA community page perhaps. This year we had record attendance 170 people. At some point, the summit will outgrow the free NI campus and require an external paid venue. Questions are being raised about whether to charge for attending the summit. No decisions have been made but, I can see the request about giving away the content freely, to be questioned even further in that context. However the fact that you need to pay to get certified is also kind of the same. However as stated above. It's not so much about the money as it is the exclusivity. The niweek videos is a different issue. I have quite a bit of experience attending non-ni conferences and trade shows. NIWeek is a hybrid of trade-show and conference. Little known fact. You could attend niweek for free if you just want to visit the show floor and view the keynotes (which now stream online). If you want to see the sessions you have to pay. I've been to many conferences that provide the video recordings of the sessions online for a price. There are many models to this. There is usually a separate ticket price for those that just want the videos. Or the videos could be an add-on price to the main conference ticket. Others just add the cost of the videos to the ticket price. However in all cases, the videos were private to those that paid. Of course to support this, you have to outsource video recording and management. It's a huge task requiring a camera in every room with a camera-person for each, etc. Now NI already outsources the NIWeek audio\video already. The session room audio and keynote video is by an external company. NI could probably pay a fee to have them record the sessions as well. I think if people ask for it, NI will do it. But I'm sure they will have to consider the funding for it. I would. Is this a marketing investment, give them away for free? What about those that paid to get in? Won't they feel cheated? is this a separate price you charge? What if they added it to the niweek sessions ticket price? What will any of the above do to attendance? Does it matter? So now in this possible future world. Where does Mark fit into it? So, thank you Mark for doing what you do and staying under the radar so-to-speak and doing it all on donated time. I know I couldn't do it, even though I considered it seriously for a while. If you are a content creator, then consider online distribution of your presentations as part of your strategy. It's not just about the powerpoint slide deck anymore.

You can attend the the CLA summit as a benefit of making it to the CLA certification level. If you are not a CLA then you shouldn't have access to the videos. The CLA summit is all about in person attendance and talking with your peers. And especially this year, there was an extra 2 days of awesome content that was a "must see". Even watching the videos doesn't do it justice, since I got the most value from one on one conversations. Perhaps in the future, this event will be open to all, but now it isn't. Mark is not paid to record videos and has not been instructed to do so by NI or anyone else (maybe some presenters have asked - no idea). He does it out of his own passion. It's quite possible that NI might prevent him from recording videos in the future at all events. This is entirely in their legal right to do so. After all, this is paid content distributed for free (CLA summit and NIWeek sessions). So please be thankful and please don't stir the pot. If you know how to find the links and are lucky then great. The YouTube solution brings a lot of attention which I think Mark's recordings should not get, in my opinion. As far as the presenters. There is technology today that you can use to record your audio and your computer screen. You can even attach a webcam if you want to be fancy. If presenters don't have their content online, it's not because it couldn't be done.

This new feature to SP1 is a first for NI. Also, this tool was demoed at the Austin CLA summit last week by NI. It's really nice.