LabVIEW 8.6 Released

[Val Brown]

QUOTE (TobyD @ Aug 8 2008, 02:13 PM)

I use a Windows Vista Laptop, but most of the time it is docked with an external monitor, mouse, keyboard, usb missile launcher. If I do un-dock, I always have a mouse ready to plug in (I use the Microsoft Wireless Notebook Laser Mouse 6000). The mouse fits nicely into a side pocket of my Laptop case and it saves me enough stress to make it worth carrying.

On a side note, my 8.6 DVDs just arrived!!! Yeah!

Yes I can imagine how different it would be to us QD if you were mouse based. Part of the issue for me is that I'm so trackpad based. Currently I can do just about everything I need to from the trackpad, with minimal shifts to the keyboard (most for documentation purposes). I'm sure I'll figure out some way to make use of QD because it definitely is a powerful feature. But I also don't think I've really used the other options maximally, like putting icons into the My favorites pallet.

FWIW, I had another odd quirk in my install of 8.6 (from the download). I found that I couldn't use Tools/Compare to compare VIs and I got an error when building which indicated that the "NIScanEngine not found in vi.lib". The problem was solved simply by copying in the NIScanEngine folder, which NI support sent to me as an email attachment.

Why/how that happened on my system I have absolutely no idea but my suggestion would be to just make certain that you don't have that problem. Try using Tools/Compare and make sure you actually can perform that operation.

Maybe my install process somehow "knew" that I wasn't that enamoured of QD and did a QD of the NIScanEngine as a protest!

[jgcode]

QUOTE (Darren @ Aug 7 2008, 01:27 PM)

The default key combination is Ctrl-Space (Cmd-Shift-Space on Mac), but you can customize it in Tools > Options > Menu Shortcuts to be something else if you want.

-D

Hi Darren - are you the guy that did the presentation on the Quick Drop?

If so...

I saw it online.

Nice work on the feature and the presentation...

That was freaking awesome to watch. :beer:

[crelf]

QUOTE (jlokanis @ Aug 8 2008, 02:30 PM)

...left hand is busy changing tools with the tab key! (I just can't use the auto tool selection. old dog. no new tricks..)

Old dog here too (LabVIEW 3) - but I can't live without the autotool now. Originally, I hated it, but a http://forums.lavag.org/PeterB-m1272.html' target="_blank">talented colleague whom I respect very much suggested I learn some choice keyboard shortcuts and just persevere with the pain for two weeks, and, sure enough, now it's second nature.

[Darren]

QUOTE (jgcode @ Aug 8 2008, 05:22 PM)

Hi Darren - are you the guy that did the presentation on the Quick Drop?

If so...

I saw it online.

Nice work on the feature and the presentation...

That was freaking awesome to watch. :beer:

I demoed Quick Drop during the Tuesday keynote at NI Week, I used it extensively during the LabVIEW Coding Challenge yesterday at NI Week, and there is a video of me using Quick Drop on the Quick Drop webpage. There's currently an awesome viral video making the rounds of some guy at NI Week who uses Quick Drop to generate beers on his desk, but that one is *not* me.

-D

[John Lokanis]

QUOTE (Darren @ Aug 8 2008, 12:50 PM)

I have never programmed in a text-based language, and I'm the one who wrote Quick Drop!

Whoa, you have *NEVER* programmed in a text based language? So, that must mean the quick drop function was written in pure G? Cool...

[Darren]

QUOTE (jlokanis @ Aug 9 2008, 12:54 AM)

Whoa, you have *NEVER* programmed in a text based language? So, that must mean the quick drop function was written in pure G? Cool...

I don't count the Basic programs I wrote on my Atari 400 as a kid, or the Pascal I was required to do in high school. Yes, the Quick Drop window in LabVIEW 8.6 is pure G. The only C work that needed to be done was the addition of a couple of private VI Server properties to give me palette object name information. Those properties were written by the person who was familiar with the palette source code. Oh yeah, and the guy who owns the menu source code added a snippet to launch my Quick Drop VI from the menu (or most commonly, from its menu shortcut key combination).

-D

[Götz Becker]

I just found the time downloading LV 8.6. My first impression is that I would directly start a new project with it (unfortunally I´ll have to continue my current project in 8.5.1). Running inside vmware on a Mac I couldn´t really try QD but it sounds promising. The XML-functions and Webservices look nice (I just can´t wait to play with them) but I wonder why the "httpRequestID" is a plain U32 and not a refnum?

[hfettig]

QUOTE (Aristos Queue @ Aug 1 2008, 03:48 PM)

You already can. Pop up on the XControl in the project tree and unlock it. When done editing, pop up and apply changes.This was possible since at least 8.2 and I think it was in 8.0 when XControls originally released. (I wouldn't know... I really didn't use 8.0... 8.2 was a bit more important to me... you can guess why...).

Yes, it theoretically works. However, 50% of the time LabVIEW (8.5/8.5.1) crashes when I try to do that. Apparently that is a known issue but since it is intermittent they have not found a cause yet. So I have made it a habit to always close all VIs that have XControl property nodes or controls in them.

Haven't tried it in 8.6 yet.

[Yair]

QUOTE (Phillip Brooks @ Aug 8 2008, 08:02 PM)

I remember reading (or writing) in a forum somewhere that the primitive names in LabVIEW are not always consistent with textual languages.

http://forums.lavag.org/-t8976.html&view=findpost&p=35228' target="_blank">Here?

As I mentioned (and demonstrated) there, and as mentioned here, you can use shortcuts (or aliases, as I called them) to do this. "mod" was one of the examples I used as well. Another was OpenG's "Conditinal Auto-indexing Tunnel", which I could never remember, so I simply gave it the alias "filter elements from array".

By the way, now that QD was released, I would advise people to try playing with my tool a bit. The reason is that it has a couple of features which are implemented differently than in QD (better, IMO) and if other people think so as well (and tell NI about it), then NI will hopefully spend the time implementing something similar.

Specifically,

1. The selection is done differently. QD uses a combobox with autocomplete and only moves to the listbox if you use the arrow keys. DI uses a string control and always has an element selected in the listbox. This changes where your focus is. Both methods have merit, but I believe mine has advantages because of the following point.
   
2. When you have more that one match, and you do want to use the listbox, you have to shift your attention there. If many of the things you drop are like that, you might find that you always look at the listbox instead of the combobox and thus miss the autocomplete. Since I have used my version a lot and I haven't used QD much, I can't say for sure.
   
3. My version uses a more intelligent sort algorithm, making the result feel (IMO) much more natural. Again, this matters less if you're using shortcuts all the time, but I have a feeling many people won't use them much of the time.
   Two specific differences in this algorithm are that DI uses a preference algorithm, so that when you use a specific name more often, it's more likely to be selected and that it gives preference to a match which is in the beginning of a word and\or close to the beginning of the name.
   

[Aristos Queue]

QUOTE (TobyD @ Aug 8 2008, 03:30 PM)

I think any change in paradigm would be faster than writing LabVIEW code with a trackpad I can't even browse the internet comfortably with a trackpad.

And I would agree with you, if I were using a Windows trackpad. The Mac trackpad has many shortcuts, including "one finger points, but two fingers scroll", and "click with one finger is left click, click with two fingers touching is right click". There's a modifier key so that you can zoom any app (including LV). It makes programming LV on a laptop really nice.

[Antoine Chalons]

QUOTE (Aristos Queue @ Aug 11 2008, 01:14 AM)

[...]

"click with one finger is left click, click with two fingers touching is right click".

[...]

Wow.. after all that time "control-clicking" I didn't even now about that one , how long has it been working ?

Thanks AQ, you've made my day a great day :worship: !

[Val Brown]

QUOTE (Antoine Châlons @ Aug 10 2008, 11:02 PM)

Wow.. after all that time "control-clicking" I didn't even now about that one , how long has it been working ?

Thanks AQ, you've made my day a great day :worship: !

Since Leopard and MacBook Pros, at least, perhaps as far back as Tiger but for sure Leopard.

In general I find that that the two finger at once does a pretty good job as a right click when I'm using Fusion to run XP to support LV under virtualization on my MBP. Just a quick Command-Tab or so and I'm back to Entourage for email or Safari for LAVA. :thumbup:

[TobyD]

QUOTE (Aristos Queue @ Aug 10 2008, 04:14 PM)

And I would agree with you, if I were using a Windows trackpad...

Those do sound like some good improvements, but I still find it difficult to believe that anyone could code as quickly with the trackpad as with a mouse. I guess it probably just comes down to practice and getting used to something. My mother-in-law is visiting us right now (from Italy) and she has never used a computer. It was comical watching her try to use the mouse (I was trying to teach her how to browse the internet). My 4 year old has much more control.

[Val Brown]

QUOTE (TobyD @ Aug 11 2008, 07:23 AM)

Those do sound like some good improvements, but I still find it difficult to believe that anyone could code as quickly with the trackpad as with a mouse. I guess it probably just comes down to practice and getting used to something. My mother-in-law is visiting us right now (from Italy) and she has never used a computer. It was comical watching her try to use the mouse (I was trying to teach her how to browse the internet). My 4 year old has much more control.

Yes, practice does make a big difference and I've only been using trackpads -- with rare exceptions -- for the last ten years on any of my machines. I even had an external trackpad back when they were available, all to avoid the use of a mouse. Using the trackpad I can even perform Mouse clicks with my thumbs while my hands are positioned for typing on the keyboard. That's just not possible when using a mouse. The old IBM and Toshiba laptops used to have the stick controller that was embedded in the keyboard area and that had some similar benefits -- with a lot more downsides IMO.

[ragglefrock]

Is there some setting to preload the QD data in the background? The first time I use it it takes like 45 seconds to load. It's hard to motivate myself to use this time-saving feature when I have to burn 45 seconds on the first use (per LV context). I have Load Palettes in Background checked in the Tools>>Options dialog, but that doesn't seem to have any affect. Ideas?

[Darren]

QUOTE (ragglefrock @ Aug 11 2008, 12:24 PM)

Is there some setting to preload the QD data in the background? The first time I use it it takes like 45 seconds to load. It's hard to motivate myself to use this time-saving feature when I have to burn 45 seconds on the first use (per LV context). I have Load Palettes in Background checked in the Tools>>Options dialog, but that doesn't seem to have any affect. Ideas?

Change the setting to "Load Palettes on Launch" if you want all Quick Drop info to be ready to use when LabVIEW launches. Depending on how many toolkits, modules, add-ons, etc. you have installed, your launch time will increase a certain amount. I've never seen a 45-second wait, though. Is your computer reasonably fast?

-D

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

QUOTE (Darren @ Aug 11 2008, 01:28 PM)

Change the setting to "Load Palettes on Launch" if you want all Quick Drop info to be ready to use when LabVIEW launches. Depending on how many toolkits, modules, add-ons, etc. you have installed, your launch time will increase a certain amount. I've never seen a 45-second wait, though. Is your computer reasonably fast?

-D

Without changing anything, an un-official time check showed it took 39 seconds. I have every possilble add-on loaded. Relativle new machine.

Ben

[Darren]

QUOTE (neB @ Aug 11 2008, 12:44 PM)

Without changing anything, an un-official time check showed it took 39 seconds. I have every possilble add-on loaded. Relativle new machine.

On my 3 GHz, 2 GB RAM machine, here are my times. This is LabVIEW 8.6, pretty much every module and add-on installed (and the default drivers too) from the LabVIEW 8.6 Platform DVD:

Load Palettes in Background:

LabVIEW launch time - 8 sec

Initial Quick Drop launch time - 4 sec

Load Palettes on Launch:

LabVIEW launch time - 12 sec

Initial Quick Drop launch time - 0 sec

So I'm seeing that the total time is effectively the same. Note that this is a non-initial launch of LabVIEW after a reboot. I expect the times would be a fair bit higher if this is your first time running LabVIEW after installing it (or after rebooting your machine). Also, if I let LabVIEW sit for a minute after launch, and I'm using "Load Palettes in Background", the first Quick Drop launch only takes about 1 1/2 seconds, as opposed to 4.

-D

[Aristos Queue]

QUOTE (neB @ Aug 11 2008, 12:44 PM)

Without changing anything, an un-official time check showed it took 39 seconds. I have every possilble add-on loaded. Relativle new machine.

With "every possible add-on" affecting user.lib, this is indeed a reasonable time to load the palettes. I've been involved in timing the palette loading in past releases of LV and it is entirely possible to get those sorts of times. The "load palettes in the background" works, but it only loads palettes when it thinks you -- the user -- are not actively doing anything. So when you're writing VIs, there's usually a lot of downtime while you think of the next node to drop, and in each of those spaces LV will load one or two palettes. But if you want QD right off the bat, you do want to do "load at launch".

[ragglefrock]

QUOTE (Darren @ Aug 11 2008, 12:55 PM)

On my 3 GHz, 2 GB RAM machine, here are my times. This is LabVIEW 8.6, pretty much every module and add-on installed (and the default drivers too) from the LabVIEW 8.6 Platform DVD:

Load Palettes in Background:

LabVIEW launch time - 8 sec

Initial Quick Drop launch time - 4 sec

Load Palettes on Launch:

LabVIEW launch time - 12 sec

Initial Quick Drop launch time - 0 sec

So I'm seeing that the total time is effectively the same. Note that this is a non-initial launch of LabVIEW after a reboot. I expect the times would be a fair bit higher if this is your first time running LabVIEW after installing it (or after rebooting your machine). Also, if I let LabVIEW sit for a minute after launch, and I'm using "Load Palettes in Background", the first Quick Drop launch only takes about 1 1/2 seconds, as opposed to 4.

My computer's a couple years old, but quick enough, and also has 2GB RAM.

-D

Hmmm... not at all what I see. I have Load in Background check, but regardless if I wait 10 minutes after launching LabVIEW (first time or not), it still takes 45 seconds or so. Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but definitely inline with what Ben's seeing. Also have many toolkits and modules installed. I will try Load on Launch and see if that helps, but my LabVIEW launch time is already pretty high (much much higher than 8-12 seconds). Do you think SCC is somehow playing a role in this?

[Darren]

QUOTE (ragglefrock @ Aug 11 2008, 01:59 PM)

Hmmm... not at all what I see. I have Load in Background check, but regardless if I wait 10 minutes after launching LabVIEW (first time or not), it still takes 45 seconds or so. Perhaps a slight exaggeration, but definitely inline with what Ben's seeing. Also have many toolkits and modules installed. I will try Load on Launch and see if that helps, but my LabVIEW launch time is already pretty high (much much higher than 8-12 seconds). Do you think SCC is somehow playing a role in this?

I use SCC in the LabVIEW project, but our server is pretty snappy. I'm not too familiar with LabVIEW launch time speed issues, but I think I've heard people blame slow SCC servers and weird licensing network problems for slow LabVIEW launches in the past.

-D

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

QUOTE (Darren @ Aug 11 2008, 03:08 PM)

I use SCC in the LabVIEW project, but our server is pretty snappy. I'm not too familiar with LabVIEW launch time speed issues, but I think I've heard people blame slow SCC servers and weird licensing network problems for slow LabVIEW launches in the past.

-D

Close LV and then re-open took less than a second. I'll try to rember to look it again tomorow AM to see how it acts after another re-boot.

Ben

BTW: Darren, The gentleman that said "Hi" to you on my behalf was one of my bosses, Dr. Greg Cala (the fifth person in the world to earn his CLA).

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

One question before I install this on my development machine.

Does installing the toolkits still uninstall the toolkits in other LabVIEW versions?

Ton

[Darren]

QUOTE (Ton @ Aug 12 2008, 12:33 AM)

Does installing the toolkits still uninstall the toolkits in other LabVIEW versions?

Starting with LabVIEW 8.6 and moving forward, a LabVIEW/toolkits install will no longer affect the installs of previous toolkits. So yes, your older toolkits are safe when installing LabVIEW 8.6.

-D

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

Thanks!

I couldn't find it on any of the readme's (which is logical the old behaviour should be mentioned)

Ton