Justin Goeres

QUOTE (PaulG. @ May 28 2008, 05:24 PM)

Is there any way to duplicate a right-click of a mouse from the keyboard? In GotoMeeting right-click doesn't work. Really frustrating working remotely. It can be done on a Mac, but I can't seem to find it for Windows, let alone in LV.

There appear to be a few possible methods http://articles.techrepublic.com.com/5100-10878_11-1043851.html' rel='nofollow' target="_blank">listed here (each deficient in its own way ).

QUOTE (Michael_Aivaliotis @ May 28 2008, 10:33 AM)

I'm sure I could fill several T-Shirts with the diagrams I've seen. Each person can wear one piece of the diagram and the code becomes whole when several people stand side by side.

STOP LOOKING AT ME LIKE THAT.

QUOTE (neB @ May 28 2008, 09:01 AM)

That would get them all the Lissajous curves!

QUOTE (neB @ May 28 2008, 05:34 AM)

Where does he find the time?

Dual cores, and by leveraging the power of LabVIEW's inherently parallel processing capability.

QUOTE (Michael_Aivaliotis @ May 28 2008, 01:09 AM)

No Photoshop required. Written, Drawn in pure G.

Please tell me you did that with scripting, and not by hand?

EDIT: On second thought, I can't decide what I want the answer to be. Doing it via scripting might be even crazier.

QUOTE (JFM @ May 27 2008, 10:29 PM)

Appending data to a file does not require the Set Write Position to explicitly tell LabVIEW to append the data at each write operation, it is only necessary to do this before you start writing data to the file.

To elaborate a little bit on this, the File Position is automatically tracked by LabVIEW and is associated with the file refnum that you're passing into the Write File function(s). It is automatically updated after each Write or Read. So if you want a write operation to begin "where you left off last time" you don't have to use Set File Position.

QUOTE (salikatt @ May 27 2008, 12:57 PM)

It's jsut the way the clusters are arranged on the block diagram. It's going to be a lot of wires around. But I guess it's better than the other solution with reference/propoerty nodes then.

Generally speaking, using Property Nodes & References just to avoid block diagram clutter is a seductive, but wrong approach. It seems like a great idea, but as jgcode pointed out, it means taking a shortcut around dataflow. That can lead to really, really hard-to-find bugs in your code later on. For small, single developer projects you can probably get away with it, but it's better to just use good practices from the outset so you don't have to worry about how it scales later on.

As for the more general problem of block diagram clutter, there are various ways to deal with that, including functional globals, decoupling of controls/indicators from the data they contain, by-reference and/or by-value objects, etc.

QUOTE (David Wisti @ May 27 2008, 07:39 AM)

When I open my larger projects, they always open with unsaved changes even if you explicitly save the project before closing.

I don't mean to threadjack, but there are some known situations that can cause that to happen. The most common is that if you have any auto-populating folders in your project, the act of opening the project file causes LabVIEW to refresh those folders and it somehow always concludes that something has changed. I don't remember any of the other causes (because the auto-pop folders one is by far the most common for me), but my understanding is that the issue is annoying but harmless, and NI is generally aware of it.

QUOTE (neB @ May 27 2008, 07:20 AM)

As an "Air-Force Brat" (34 years ago) I lived on Tyndall air force base and attended JR high school in Panama City were we had the oppertunity to pass the paper mill (NOT a treat) going both ways.

So then you can confirm that the Spooky Graveyard and Secret Old Mine are real?

QUOTE (Skip @ May 27 2008, 05:23 AM)

When using LabVIEW 8.5.1, I get the error message: Failed to auto save "my project name.lvproj" for recovery.

Under any particular circumstances? (Is your disk full? Is your project on a network drive? Does it happen all the time on all projects, or just once in a while on certain projects? What are you doing when it happens? etc.)

What you're describing has never happened to me.

QUOTE (Phillip Brooks @ May 27 2008, 03:13 AM)

Will your next block diagram look anything like the map to her shop?

That map is legitimately awesome. It makes me wonder if (or wish that) the rest of the site is a personal in-joke or something. There's a gallery of art done in MSPaint, as well.

The thing that might scare me the most is that the front page (I didn't check anything else) renders almost exactly the same in both IE and Firefox.

EDIT: If you turn down your speakers and soldier forth into the bowels of the site, you strike gold.

Interesting Tidbit #1: ("Theological Debate...")

QUOTE (Yvette)

Interesting Tidbit #2: ("Notes of a Global Domination Conspiracy")

QUOTE (Yvette)

Should I be proud or ashamed that I think I can identify every Internet meme in that video?

QUOTE (thang @ May 21 2008, 07:02 PM)

No matter what Version of Labview that i'm using? Because currently I am using the V8.2.0

Yep, everything said above applies to your version.

Robotics:

Or maybe The Actual Creator And Patron Saint Of LabVIEW:

The Creator And Patron Saint Of LabVIEW?

QUOTE (eaolson @ May 21 2008, 03:44 PM)

I'm actually somewhat surprised there wasn't one like this:

I was working on this one before I came back here and saw your reply:

QUOTE (Aristos Queue @ May 21 2008, 03:13 PM)

I kind of question the whole premise. I can actually see it for things like PXI, CVI, LabVIEW, LVOOP, LAVA, and OpenG. But Beer? Or Dog Lover? If the point is to "enhance your networking experience at NIWeek" I really question the level of enhancement that's going to come from saying (to a complete stranger), "Oh! I see you like beer! You may have noticed that I do, as well!" (Google? Google?! I mean, seriously.)

Frankly, other than the sort of broad few I just mentioned, I would rather see people with unique badge icons, so that when I'm standing there talking to them on the show floor or during Free Beer Hour or between sessions, I can say, "So why do you have a haystack on your badge?" and they'll say, "Because my grandfather patented the first automated baling machine." I dunno. Maybe I approach networking a little differently than NI thinks I should .

Since I can't stop myself, here's another personal interest one:

QUOTE (xtaldaz @ May 21 2008, 02:46 PM)

Or we could just print up our own glyphs/avatars on stickers to place over the lame ones.

That's why I hope we can find out the size of them in advance.

At the risk of seeming petulant and obtuse, those images are really lame.

I really think we should make our own badge icons. Here's a blank:

Does anybody have the contacts inside NI to figure out exactly how big the images will be on the badges?

The images themselves (according to GIMP) are 207x179 at 300ppi resolution, so if they print them exactly that way they'll be about 0.7" x 0.6".

QUOTE (prads @ May 20 2008, 10:58 PM)

I am new to labview. I want a node which accepts different inputs and gives a single output maybe by placing all the properties/inputs defined adjacent to each other or in a similar fashion (--something like a multiplexer). Is there any VI that I can use? Does the bundle.vi do a similar thing?

Yes, what you're probably looking for is Bundle. Another (easier-to-read) option is Bundle By Name. There might be specific usage examples of each of them in the LabVIEW help, but I don't know for sure.

QUOTE (crelf @ May 19 2008, 12:46 PM)

Pfffffft! Here's some reasons not to code on a plane:

• Unless your laptop is actually a PDA, how are you going to get the workspace to use a mouse for graphical programming? (unless you use one of those ultra-mini trackballs - that *might* work)
  
• Unless you fly weekly, I find flying a relaxing break where I can recline and enjoy a club soda and the latest NWA inflight magazine
  
• If you do take a mouse on a plane, it'll just feed all of those snakes
  
• Flying is a great time to catch up on those tasks you're always interupted trying to do - like clearing out your email inbox
  

All items basically agreed. To go back to my recent LAVAcr story, most of what I accomplished (in an hour in the airport, since my aforementioned giant laptop is unusable on the plane) was laying out a class hierarchy and creating class data & member VIs for the classes, to fill in the implementation later. But you're right -- I can't stand LabVIEWing without a mouse, so any hardcore development is not going to happen anyway. Besides the basic framing I mentioned, I can imagine minor bugfixing. But no heavy lifting.

But again, there's the other side to my question; traveling with a 17" laptop is kind of a hassle in general, and totally precludes me ever doing work en route. The reason I'm considering a 15" machine is because it will be a bit easier to lug around, and it might open up the ability to do some work under certain circumstances. But in order for that to happen, it has to be basically usable as a development machine when I finally get on-site. From reading experiences (& votes) here, it sounds like a 15" mostly fits that bill except for some resolution considerations.

QUOTE (Daklu @ May 19 2008, 07:35 PM)

In my class I have a vi that takes a cluster of data as an input. I would like this cluster to be a typedef that I could use internally in the class as well as have available to class users. However, any class vis that use the typedef as a input, as well as the typedef itself, break when the typedef is in the class structure. If I disconnect the typedef on member vis it works, or if I place the typedef outside the class heirarchy it works. Is this expected behavior?

Do you have the Access Scope for the typedef set to Private? You have to make sure it's Public (or Protected, if you're only using it in related classes) or else VIs outside the class won't be able to access it.

QUOTE

Not at edit time. However, I have created dynamic dispatch VIs that do nothing but return a "must override" error at runtime to accomplish something similar.

QUOTE

Not that I'm aware of. You have to use the Project environment to create/edit classes, but they don't have to be members of an .lvproj.

QUOTE

I put things into a .lvproj based on whether they're associated with that.... project . If the class was part of a reuse library (in user.lib or something) I might leave it out of a particular project file (just like I'd do with most anything in user.lib), but other than that pretty much any file that I use in a particular project goes in that project's .lvproj.

QUOTE (Michael_Aivaliotis @ May 18 2008, 07:30 PM)

Airplanes are not for programming. If you are programming on a plane, then change jobs. If you need to read a document or something then get a small laptop or hand held device.

That's a good point, although that would involve carrying yet another gadget around.

Currently I do absolutely zero programming in-flight, but that's partly because of my laptop's enormity. That's kinda the point of raising the question -- I want to get feedback from everybody on their experiences with smaller machines.

If my machine was small enough to at least consider editing code during a flight, then there's a small chance I might do it once in a while. FYI: a recent experience with an idea for a potential LAVA CR contribution is what brought this issue to the front of my mind.

QUOTE (shoneill @ May 19 2008, 12:52 AM)

The idea of karma is something which a lot of people do actually believe in, even without perhaps attributing anything religious to it. I prefer to think of it as a statistical approach to communal survival instincts, but to each their own.

Or, if you prefer, it's reflective of the human mind's legendary ability to find patterns where there might not necessarily be any .

QUOTE (shoneill @ May 19 2008, 12:52 AM)

You've touched on a huge issue that probably goes back to the first time pre-LabVIEW humans saw a lightning bolt and said, "OMFG! WTF wuz that?!? "

Religion, at its core, is a way for people to share a framework for understanding things that seem bigger than themselves, and for understanding their individual and collective place in that framework. It provides a lot of psycho-social benefits, such as a feeling of belonging and nicely-formatted answers to many questions, like "Where did I come from?" and "Why am I here?"

However, subscribing to any particular religion involves a trade-off between the feeling of belonging and the ability to think critically, and that balance can get dangerously out-of-whack depending on lots of different factors. Catholicism dealt with this rather famously right around the time of Martin Luther and The Reformation , but all the different offshoots of Lutheranism, Baptism, Methodism, Mormonism and the like (I'm only really familiar with Western religions) are the result of that tug of war.

So to say that "Churches (for the most part) are about acquiring and controlling power" as a blanket statement is something I'd disagree with. But you're right in the sense that the issue of power & control over the people is something that all religions deal with in their own way. Some (many of the fundamentalist Christian organizations in the US, currently) deal with it, as you pointed out, by wrapping things up "in nice scripture quotes" and using those as a way to dissuade anyone (true believer or otherwise) from even having a well-reasoned discussion about Belief (or Faith ).

QUOTE (shoneill @ May 19 2008, 12:52 AM)

But the problem is that, depending on what religion you're talking about, that choice can be explicitly not optional. It's obvious for people who are able to look at the issue from an outside perspective, but if someone's entire world-view is informed by, "Jesus said, 'Bring me all the little children,'" and "The Bible is the Holy and Everlasting Perfect Word of God," it's hard to find a place to even begin the discussion.

QUOTE (shoneill @ May 19 2008, 12:52 AM)

Fair enough.

QUOTE (shoneill @ May 19 2008, 12:52 AM)

I see the point you're making, but I just frame the issue a little differently. I guess my main point is that atheists (at least in the US) have trouble finding a place to fit into the Great Religious Debate because they're frequently confronted with, "Atheism is just faith that there is no God, so you're a hypocrite for dissing religion," or "Atheists are really just agnostics with attitude problems," or, "There are no atheists in foxholes."

QUOTE (crelf @ May 19 2008, 05:45 AM)

I'm pretty sure I didn't explain that well - anyone else care to clarify my muddy thoughts?

The refnum is like a lifetime ticket to an amusement park. You can come & go (read & write) as you please, but if they close the park down (close the connection) you won't know about it until the next time you visit. Your ticket (refnum) still looks the same as it did before (same address, same promises of happiness, same terrifying mouse character) but trying to visit the park (read & write) causes errors (and disappointment).

What's more, it may be necessary to inspect the error information ("You are not allowed to enter the park because...") at a deeper level to determine why the error occurred (too many people in the park right now / you are not the right ticket holder / the park is closed forever / etc.).

Is that a tortured enough analogy?

QUOTE (Giseli Ramos @ May 19 2008, 05:17 AM)

<Not a Refnum> is what you would get if you went to your city's (Operating System's) ticket booth (Open TCP Connection) and said, "I wish to buy a ticket to Giseli's Super Fun Center," if that particular park didn't exist. Your ticket agent (Operating System) would say, "There is no amusement park by that name," (error) and would give you back... nothing (<Not a Refnum>). That's just one example.

There might be situations where you want to check whether a refnum is valid before reading/writing (to prevent errors before they happen rather than just detecting them after they happen). That's when you would use Not a Refnum?.

QUOTE (Gavin Burnell @ May 18 2008, 06:13 AM)

Still, I tend to feel that if I have a vi whose diagram needs more than 1280x800 is probably got a little bit out of hand and needs some refactoring

Good point, although my problems with real estate usually stem from the number of open windows, not the size of the diagrams .