PaulG.

... I do have the luxury, and the pain, of being a "team of one".

I've been a "Team of One" for probably more than 10 of my 11+ years in LV. That's why we come here.

What happens if the disk crashes? IT happens. Have you considered using a dongle instead? They're cheap and very easy to implement.

...The unbundle and bundle by name inside the individual states will help to "document" what data is being used in the individual state (provided you use meaningful names on you cluster elements)...

Indeed. There are few things you can do that are more useful in "self-documenting" code than having well-named data and data clusters along with well-named and well-defined states. If your data is/are named accurately the undbundle and bundle by name help make your code a lot more self-explanatory.

However, use with caution. One of the drawbacks to this approach is that in large applications some of your data names can get fairly long. If you have a cluster inside of a cluster inside of another cluster and you go after that data in one of your states your unbundle by name will be so long it takes up half your screen.

I always say: Jack Bauer and I are each others' alter-ego's.

I liked Bugzilla, but haven't used it in a while. And we only tracked bugs with it.

I don't see any problem tracking requirements with it. And if you have a traceable document that describes how you track requirements with Bugzilla I don't see any problems with regulated industries, either. Sounds like a plan.

LabVIEW and guns.

I work for the US Navy and they are extremely paranoid about network issues...

I like the idea that the military is paranoid. Really. They get attacked all the time. I'm dating myself here, but my days at NORAD were just a few years before the internet and the only computer security issues we were concerned about were internal - spy vs. spy stuff. Recently the Pentagon was hit with a virus that was delivered and spread via personal thumb drives. I can't imagine working for the DOD now. I'm surprised you are allowed to link to external web sites at all.

That was only the start...

Watching this thing run in highlight execution mode made my morning. Nice work.

I pitched Requirements Gateway to my manager and he ignored me. As a result, I've written a small program that searches a VI for Free Labels like "[Covers ....] and brings you to that portion of the code. It gets a list of requirements from (for now a csv file) and calculates coverage based on the finding a label for each one. It has quite a way to go, but I'm thinking it'll be useful for those of us that can't get the funding for a commercial product.

Any interest?

Sure.

Check out the new NI Requirements Gateway ... It's a great tool for highly-regulated industries.

Fortunately I don't need that level of control over my documentation. Usually the customer is keeping everything on file and in order. Good thing. Gateway is almost $2K

In my opinion the only use of giving code to the (non programming) customer is that the customer gets psychologically satisfied because he can hold something in his hands for what he has paid. For regulated things (I am thinking of IEC 62304) it would be of more help to have the requirement docs, risk assessment docs and so on in a nice and understandable form. Will your customer ever look into the provided code?

In some point the customer must rely on you and your company that you fulfill the requirements for the regulations. Perhaps a point for your marketing.

Another point for giving the full code to the customer is that you have a remote location where the code is stored for back up reasons.

As far as I know you can include all SubVI in the documentation. If you start Print... select multiple VIs > press Add VI Hierachy ... and you have on, two, many VIs selected for printing the VI documentation. Isn't that what you could/need to print into HTML-Documentation?

On the other hand one has to admit that LV-code is quite similar to certain UML diagrams if the SubVI are carefully choosen. So for regulation purposes I would always try to argue that a print of an upper level VI replaces e. g. an UML-activity diagram. Of course some explanation is needed but UML diagrams are not selfexplaining as well. So LV-code-prints can be part of the software documentation even on a more abstract level.

I've tried printing mulitple VI's but it's cumbersome. I've tried printing "hierarchy" and it gives me fits and errors. So far I've been lucky. Customers seem to be OK with a top-level HTML document of my code. Once in a while someone might ask for a little more detail. I'll leave it at that for now.

Everyone has been very helpful. Thanks y'all for your input.

Just some more for the wish list:

Remove Bugs, Remove boss, remove customers, pay bill, let me go on holidays...

Felix

... no interrupts, no distract, XM mode "on", set up travel arrangements to NI Week ...

I feel that a better solution for this is the one shown in Darren's nugget here, because it doesn't require you to do anything beforehand and allows "fixing the mistake". One of the posts there also has a link to a 7.0 equivalent, for those who don't have 8.x.

I agree. I use Darren's "Abort" quite often. It sits on my desktop.

Just to prove that it is technically possible:

Yes, programmaticly:

Since ages I am missing the context menu entry "Finish this VI". It should simply finish programming the code for the selected VI according to my ideas and the requirements. Does anyone has such a function?. Any idea how to make it?

Indeed. There are methods to finishing VI's. But it's not a function. It's a person who goes by the title of "One of My Minions".

WOW! Another lady on LAVA. That makes how many? Maybe three now? Welcome.

Don't worry about Norm. He's frequently "misunderstood", but we still love 'em over here.

My company deals with a lot of regulated industries and I frequently need to send my LV application documentation to our customers.

Most of the time, along with the Test Specs and Procedures, etc. I send a zipped file with the VI documentation in HTML format. This seems kind of cumbersome, and the "complete" VI documentation does not contain subvi's.

Has anyone thought it would be a good idea for NI to provide a "VI Reader" program? It would be similar to software(s) that allow you to read CAD drawings, PDF files, etc. It would not actually send the code itself, but in Print you could create the entire application in "VI Reader" format. My customer would have VI Reader and would be able to look at it without being able to actually edit it.

Observation: text programmers have the option of sending source code to anyone in a format anyone can read.

This sounds like it might be a lot of work for NI, with limited use, (and I seriously doubt NI would make this available for free ) but before I send this idea over there I would like to get more input.

Thanks in advance.

That was the whole idea!

Wow. I just remembered you created that guy years ago.

Being a stereotypical anti-social introvert I'm downright stumped why I would even care that somebody just bought a latte and "OMG! The barista was so rude!" or why anybody else would care that I "Closed 4 bugs today." I signed up solely so I can get up to the minute information on any new stuff announced at NI Week. (Hope nobody gets offended when I drop all their feeds afterwards.)

...and no, I don't have a facebook account either.

I'm the same way. I don't mind forums and participate in a few. I only signed up for Twitter so I could be a "follower" of a few famous folks I really admire.

You could use the 'Blinking' property too.

I would be careful using the blinking property. I've worked in environments where using a blinking LED was as bad as your team finding out you wear dinosaur pajamas.

Uh, it Windows. What do you think?

Sorry, couldn't resist. I have nothing constructive to offer.

George

Thanks anyway. I do have an iMac. I bought it from my daughter when she bought a new MacBook Pro. It sure looks pretty in my living room ... doing absolutely nothing.

Wow, other than parental interaction in my life age 3 to 28,

this is possibly the most misunderstood I've ever been.

"To be great is to be misunderstood."

Ralph Waldo Emerson

... SSD RAID would be even more cool if you want to fork out the cash.

? Cash indeed! How many disk drives?! 24? I'm a lowly Test Engineer. Not Bill Gates. But SSD is REALLY COOL. "OMG! It's full of drives!"

Thanks Toby. I was just curious. I was trying to avoid a clean reinstall. But it seems like a good time to do so and get Windows 7. Maybe now's the time to buy a couple more disk drives and try my first RAID system. So much work reinstalling everything, though.

My PC at home is running 8.5 on Vista, SP2. Will I break LV if I move up to Windows 7?

Thanks in advance.

Shite....

guess that's why I'm not in marketing

I should have guessed as much with the way people go WTF after most things I say anyways.

Maybe I should have used the Monty Python foot w/ the nail through it....

I could see where it would be very confusing w/out the caption, but usually you here somebody say

"Whatever 4 Life" when it's something they're devoted to or in this case, willing to live with a rusty nail through the heart.

but I know, I know, you are probably all still going WTF.

I was going for something like this which is a classic Sailor Jerry style Tatoo

WTF?

Maybe your eye is better than mine but I don't waste any time figuring out color combinations for my GUI's. However, I've been complimented on my front panels. I use system buttons, one color, font and bold style for button labels and a custom background image. If I have graphs I make them transparent. If I have a lot of info to display to the operator I'll use a list box or a tree control as an indicator. If you follow these guidlines you can have a nice looking FP while avoiding the "LabVIEW Look".