hooovahh

The trial gets extended to 45 days if you login with your NI credentials which is free to sign up for. Also there are are VMs with snapshot features. Beyond that a home edition of LabVIEW is pretty cheap but I think that is still stuck on LabVIEW 2014. There were experiments in getting and viewing VIs as a series of PNGs, or flash which meant changing case structures to see other states. If the developer is aware of it, snippets are useful and can mean posting an image, with the VI embedded in it. You wouldn't want to do this on a whole project of course. But in general Shaun is right. Keep your code base in the oldest version of LabVIEW you want to support, and make decisions about upgrading as needed for newer hardware support, or feature sets.

None. There is no guarantee that the Add function doesn't start acting like the subtract if there is a full moon out. It is just in NI's best interest to keep users of their software and hardware happy and that generally means consistent behavior, but bugs happen. I missed you Michael.

No there is not. Only the Switch method is possible because of how VI Server works. Basically the latch only works if you can only change the button value from the UI. If you ever want to change the button value from anything else like loading the value from a file, or setting it programatically at runtime, then you need it to be switch. That being said the easy solution is to just create a local variable in the event case where the value change is being handled and write the boolean back to a False and you get basically the same functionality. The only way this technique doesn't work is if you are polling the control value, at which point you'd need to look for some boolean crossing and handle it differently.

You will not be able to create a VIM that operates the same way my XNode does. This is because the technique I used was to use the Array to Cluster function, and setting the number of elements using scripting. However using the OpenG method you can do this another way. It is likely less efficient and takes longer but if you want a VIM that does it this should do the trick. Array Of Variants to Cluster.vim

There is some kind of short timeout for posting. I can't remember the reasoning, and I don't have control over adjusting it but I too see it. Basically if you are on a LAVAG page for a couple minutes, and then try to post something it won't work and you'll have to do as you described, copying and refreshing. At least clicking submit doesn't clear out the text you wrote. That would really suck.

In the LabVIEW community a phrase that has been used to describe undocumented, or incomplete features of LabVIEW has at times been called Rusty Nails. In searching LAVA it appear this is never explained and so this post is intended to give a brief history with as many details as I know having not been active when this all took place. The earliest reference to "Rusty Nails" found online (thanks to AQ) is by Greg McKaskle of NI in 1999. Someone was asking about all the undocumented INI settings that could be found, and how some weren't exposed to the Tools >> Options dialog. Greg's reply was this: Back in the LabVIEW 5.x and 6.x era there was a new emerging technology that was LabVIEW Scripting. NI had created scripting for their own purposes but the community saw it and wanted to be able to automate editing, or creating LabVIEW code. With the help from Jim Kring and others, the basic tools for enabling scripting in LabVIEW were available. The story of how this came about is worth a post of its own, but the summary is that NI shipped a VI that didn't have a password on the block diagram, which allowed for the creation of any object, given an ID. Using a for loop, you could easily create every object in LabVIEW, including objects which facilitate in creating and manipulating code. Discussing scripting often leads into discussing other INI keys which enable private functions like the well known SuperSecretPrivateSpecialStuff. It is possible this is one of the keys Greg was referring to. Other INI keys from 5.x can be found here. After these discoveries the NI forums started getting users asking about scripting, and private functions. Users were looking for help, and documentation but NI wasn't ready for this knowledge to be public and so they started deleting all posts related to private, and scripting functionality. Some of the motivation for the creation of LAVAG came about by a desire to have an independent place to discuss the LabVIEW topics that NI didn't want to have on the public forums, potentially adding to the number of support calls, and confusing new users with advanced topics that were undocumented or incomplete. After LAVA's creation a subforum section was labeled Rusty Nails, and intended to be a place to discuss Scripting, ExternalNodes, XNodes, Private methods, and general LabVIEW hackery. Over the years several private functions have been made public, and scripting has become an official feature shipping with LabVIEW. Because of this the Rusty Nails and XNodes subforums were combined into what is now the VI Scripting section. Even over on the official NI forums, discussions about private functionality and XNodes has been relaxed since those early days. Asking for private methods and getting unofficial help is something users, and sometimes NI employees will participate in, without the heavy censorship seen earlier. And topics of scripting are encouraged now that the feature has been official since LabVIEW 8.6. If you have anything you'd like me to add regarding scripting's history feel free to reply and I can add it. And if I got any of the details wrong let me know. Again I wasn't around when this all took place and I've just tried putting down the details I've heard from other developers.

There are private events on the tree for Item Close? and Item Open? which is a filtering event and allows you to discard the open and close. You need the super special private special stuff INI to access these. Then I'd recommend turning that INI off after.

Oh I like this. Have a single place where all packages, and versions of packages get installed (extracted), and then switch in the package and version "Installed" by setting up the symlinks. I could see arguments that these links should link to under vi.lib, or user.lib or wherever, or I could see arguments for them being in folders relative to the project. I think having to uninstall and reinstall packages (delete and recreate links) between projects isn't too big of a deal and would reduce the likelihood of cross linking issues where one developer opens it and if finds the reuse library in a different place than expected from another developer.

You didn't specify the operating system on your PXI but I assume it is RT, it can be Windows as well at which point developing on the system should be pretty easy. If you're already familiar with RT on cRIO and cDAQ, then PXI should be no problem. You configure the devices in MAX just like any other remote device, and can setup virtual channels or other basic things there. Then in the project you add your target, write your VIs and run them there which get deployed. There really isn't any other considerations between a cRIO and PXI. If anything I'd say the cRIO can be more complicated due to the FPGA in the mix. Afterwards you create a build of your application and deploy it. EDIT: Oh and if you really want to test deploying to RT devices you can load up a virtual machine and deploy to it as if it were a PXI with no hardware.

I think it would be hard to install DAQmx without MAX. It is likely in your start menu as "NI MAX" if it isn't then that is probably needed to setup DAQ Assistant. If it is missing, install MAX and you may need to reinstall DAQmx. When DAQmx installs it looks at what things you have on your system and installs DAQmx support for those things. If a thing is missing when DAQmx gets installed, it won't install support for it and you'll need to reinstall. For instance if you have LabVIEW 2017 installed, and you then install DAQmx it only installs support for LabVIEW 2017. If later you then install LabVIEW 2016 you won't have DAQmx support, until you run the installer again and it adds support for 2016. During the second install it should see that 2017 support is already there and do nothing.

You probably already saw a discussion on Code Sharing, which has no conclusion yet. My opinion is if it is stable and good and you don't expect much changes, submit it to the Code Repository here (package preferred). If this is still in a state of flux and development, a site better equipped with change management like BitBucket or GitHub would probably be better. That being said this is a fine place to start discussions and suggestions, and can be moved to Code In Development at your request.

Well G Package Manager appears to be more project oriented. So install OpenG Array 1.0.0 for this project, but then be able to install OpenG Array 2.0.0 for a different project, or not have OpenG Array available at all in another project. Lots of duplication but moving closer to sandboxing projects. Because of this I'm unsure how palettes would be effected by VIs installed for a project and not the IDE. But yes it does seem to be command line heavy, and not intended for installing VIPM or NIPM packages.

Having NIPM install VIPM packages seemed like great starting point...but that likely isn't going to happen. NI really should have just bought JKI's IP, and turned it into NIPM, building off of what has worked well in current LabVIEW. Oh and another thing to muddy up the waters, there is already a 3rd package manager aimed at LabVIEW, G Package Manager. Haven't used it yet but it was presented on at the CLA Summit in a session I didn't get to see. I wouldn't be surprised if all of these use a zip or some compression as their file format. EDIT: NIPKG can be opened in 7-zip and is listed as a "Ar" Type, looking similar to a Debian package with gzipped tar balls.

Continuation of package building with OpenG and DEAB tools moved to here.

Have you reinstalled DAQmx since getting this error? If not you should. Also what version of LabVIEW, MAX, and DAQmx are you using?

I do love and use the Pre and Post Build/Install/Uninstall VI features. I know it would be best to have some features be native, but having the ability to hijack the build process to make it do custom things really adds so much flexibility.

Contributions to the community are always appreciated thank you. That being said you might want to look into the other alternatives that have seemingly similar feature sets to yours. I've been using LVMark for several years. It isn't HTML but a type of markdown format. Years ago there was another attempt called Formatter which does look like HTML.

@David_L I get your point. If someone wants to migrate this all to the Wiki that's fine. I've been keeping the pruning to a minimum, so anyone updating a wiki can incorporate the suggestions from this thread.

Despite being on LAVA all the time, my power is quite limited and I believe something like hosting a Wiki here would take more than administrator controls and would need site controls, meaning only Michael would be capable of this. I don't mind hijacking this thread, as I intend on periodically pruning it (as I've done a little so far) and after some time and discussions die down I'll delete the user posts. Obviously this would be counter productive to the discussion taking place and I did think about locking this thread from the start but this is fine. Keep it coming just know that your post maybe deleted after a conclusion has been made on a subject, or your content has been added to the main post.

To be fair I'm not the only owner of this, any moderator or admin on LAVA can update this as well. But I get your point.

Wow lots of good discussion. Totally agree. I intend on presenting on reuse and package strategies, and in researching and discussions with NI about NIPM I think they got the messaging wrong. By even calling it NIPM, where many LabVIEW developers have only known one package manager their whole career, means we already think NIPM is to replace VIPM. But looking at the design choices NI made it doesn't look great. One major current limitation is that a package is made for a specific version of LabVIEW. This means if I want to distribute a toolkit I need to make a NXG 1.0 package, NXG 2.0 package, NXG 2.1 package, NXG 3.0 package, etc. This is because the installation path is to a specific folder which changes with each version. Then there is the lack of pre and post VI calls. There is an option for calling EXEs. Needless to say I'm not thrilled about having two (at least) package managers to think about, manage, and deploy with. As for code sharing, I really like LAVAs low barrier to entry, flexibility with license, and automatic discussion page creation. I like Git, and Bitbucket's version control and collaboration features. I like NI's larger overall traffic, with potential high exposure. And I like the tools network for ease of access for the developer. Maybe instead of us trying to come up with the answer to "How do we share code?" we should just have a list of options, and reasons you'd use each, then talk about how to use each option.

I'd argue this should probably go under contributing code, not finding code. Either that or going under the Beyond Basics Training where more advanced topics are discussed. I might be wrong but Reference Designs Portal isn't really a place I would see going to find a toolkit, or example on how to do some operation. It seems more like a place to understand design patterns, and structure code.

I don't have admin controls, just moderator...

Dang so I can't even get this to work at the moment. Using a physical keyboard CTRL+Shift+Up and Down does what I'd expect. But the Keyboard Event code I have for some reason isn't doing what it should. CTRL, and Shift seem to be working, or at least my on screen keyboard shoes them being activated when they should. And the Up and Down appear to work as it goes up and down a line of text. But when I put it in my application, it just doesn't do what I'd expect. This is also with a whole bunch of waits added in case windows doesn't like fast key presses all the time. I know I used this technique before but I can't seem to find the code that I used.

I couldn't make that work that way either... It is possible something changed in LabVIEW since I used this trick. It seems that setting the Index Value on the array makes focus go away. And setting the KeyFocus any other time just sets the first element...darn. But one method that does still work (and sucks even more) is you can navigate using various key combinations and you can simulate key presses to get the desired result. So set KeyFocus to the string control. This sets the focus on string control in the first index of the array. Now if you press CTRL+Shift+Up Arrow, and your focus will be on the cluster element at index 0. Now press Tab and it will be on the second cluster element. Now press CTRL+Shift+Down Arrow and your focus will be on the second string control. If you pressed tab twice it would be the third. So you can programatically set the string control focus you want, but there is several complications with this method. If you aren't looking at index 0 you need to do additional math to figure out what the index value should be, and how many times a tab is needed. If I get some time today I'll try to post an example VI. Mondays after a trip are always crazy