Project enhancements

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

This post is a try to group several project-related wish-list items into one discussion.

Based on recent discussion (1, 2), I felt there are some things missing to make the project the super-duper LabVIEW IDE enhancement.

The things that are currently lacking (IMHO)

• Set a description for a virtual folder
  This allows you to group VIs under a folder that has a better description than the name of the folder
  
• Setting 'Conditional Disable settings' in the build-properties
  
• Better Build-tools
  • The possibility to set the version of an executable and an installer in one location
    
  • Have dynamic built location (builds\executable\%version%)
    
  • Have the possibility to edit the GUID of an installer
    

  [*]Update the SCC settings when they are edited from within LabVIEW code

  [*]Allow extending of the context menu-items of project items

  [*]Copy build settings from one project to another

Share your thoughts, fill in the poll and respond, make the project perfect.

Ton

[jzoller]

(Disclaimer: As a relative newcomer to the project (using 8.5.1), I may be missing some things that already exist. If so, *please* point them out to me.)

1. There's still work needed on project stability: 2+ crashes a day are common for me, along with corrupted project files that are never quite the same again.

2. For builds, I'd love G-code Integrated Ant, (see Ant/NAnt ...but that's probably asking too much for a multinational corp, and should be left to the open source folks ).

While I'm holding my breath for that... how about:

• a "clean out old files before building" option
  
• Source build even when missing dependencies
  
• +1 for dynamic build location (I'd call it symbolic path substitution though ) On all build types!
  
• Stop leaving dynamic files out of my installers
  

I would very much like to stop describing the project as "Better than it used to be.", and start using "Fantastic!" instead.

Joe Z.

[Mellroth]

I like the project, as it allows me to include non-LV files in the LabVIEW environment and also because of the abstraction, but...

* One of the strengths with LabVIEW is that it is graphical, and previously we used to group all top-level VIs in a VI-Tree for easy access.

In the project I can pretty much do the same thing, but then the Icon (graphical) view is lost, and so are some of the benefits of the graphical layout.

I would therefore like to see the LabVIEW project turn more graphical, e.g. display VIs and CTLs with icons, at least as an option (as we have in the pallettes).

* I also think the development distribution needs some work. We have had a lots of trouble distributing FPGA code (for some reason the FPGA VIs and the bit-files were omitted from the distribution) as well as code containing VIs that were not executable (e.g. VI-Trees).

* I would like to see an installer for RT applications as well as windows apps. Currently we can create installers for windows, but no deployer/installer for the RT applications. When you have multiple targets for your RT application it would really help if an installer for RT was available.

/J

[Val Brown]

QUOTE (Ton @ Sep 1 2008, 11:59 AM)

This post is a try to group several project-related wish-list items into one discussion.

Based on recent discussion (1, 2), I felt there are some things missing to make the project the super-duper LabVIEW IDE enhancement.

The things that are currently lacking (IMHO)

• Set a description for a virtual folder
  This allows you to group VIs under a folder that has a better description than the name of the folder
  
• Setting 'Conditional Disable settings' in the build-properties
  
• Better Build-tools
  • The possibility to set the version of an executable and an installer in one location
    
  • Have dynamic built location (builds\executable\%version%)
    
  • Have the possibility to edit the GUID of an installer
    

  [*]Update the SCC settings when they are edited from within LabVIEW code

  [*]Allow extending of the context menu-items of project items

  [*]Copy build settings from one project to another

Share your thoughts, fill in the poll and respond, make the project perfect.

Ton

I think all of these ideas are right on target. I also like the idea of extending the graphical nature of the Project by allowing for icons for items. A conditional build/edit build feature would be nice: eg if the build breaks, open up the "offending" VI, dependancy or whatever (even dynamically called VIs) pointing to the "problem" much like happens when searching the items in Error View.

[PaulG.]

The Project IDE took some time getting used to, but now I don't think I could live without it. Previous to project it was a headache keeping track of everything else besides my code that I needed to build a complete application or an install disk.

[hfettig]

QUOTE

• Setting 'Conditional Disable settings' in the build-properties
  

I second this one. I'd love to have the ability to have 'DEBUG' and 'RELEASE' settings without having to remember to change the project settings before every build

QUOTE

1. There's still work needed on project stability: 2+ crashes a day are common for me, along with corrupted project files that are never quite the same again.

This is my biggest problem with LV project. Personally I have the feeling it gets especially bad when you have multiple XControls and Libraries.

I do like the cross-linking improvements that were made in 8.5 but they are still not perfect.

Personally I would be satisfied if NI would invest all their time in increasing the stability of project, rather than adding new features.

Hold off the new features for this supposed 'complete IDE overhaul' that they are working on for a couple of years down the road. Until then, give us more stability.

[jdunham]

QUOTE (Ton @ Sep 1 2008, 11:59 AM)

• Setting 'http://forums.lavag.org/Conditional-Disable-in-build-settings-t10592.html' target="_blank">Conditional Disable settings' in the build-properties
  
• The possibility to set the version of an executable and an installer in one location
  

We really needed these, but I would extend them to say that they need to be available with property nodes or method VIs so that automated builds are possible.

We couldn't wait and had to roll out a hacked version which directly edits the lvproj file. I feel like every second we spent on that was just wasted effort because it should have been added to the lvproj system right up front.

Jason