Additional NI Software Idea Exchange

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In the everyday life of a SW developer, it comes again and again to the fact that problems arise, and must be solved.

It must be weighed again and again whether a problem resulted from own errors or whether the cause of a problem is to be found by errors in the development environment or in used modules such as xNET, DAQmx etc.

It happened to me several times in the past that I looked for errors in my own LabVIEW source code, but afterwards I realized that the cause of the problem was a malfunction in LabVIEW or in one of the used drivers.

In order to become aware of possible problems as early as possible during this troubleshooting process, it is important to be actively informed about possible problems inside of the NI Modules.

For example, it would be helpful to be notified with an email in the following cases.

- A new entry in the Known Issues and Bugs list

- The new possibility of a workaround

- Availability of a bugfix in a new LabVIEW or driver version

My suggestion would be the following:

Would it be possible to provide within the NI account settings a list of modules in which you can choose the notifications for the different Modules?

Whenever something in the known issues has changed the NI account member would get a notification via E-Mail.

It would also be possible to make entire subgroups or subject areas selectable.

The technical implementation is certainly possible in different ways. Crucial is that there is the possibility of an active notification for changes in the different known issue lists.

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NI TSM installs the attached code for simulating chassis and modular instruments that don't already have simulation plugins to MAX provided with their drivers. There's no reason I can tell that this functionality should be limited to NI TSM given that modular instruments are used outside of TSM (and TestStand) all the time. Please add this simulation capability to NI MAX!

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Improve XNet API Support on RT Targets

Recently I've been doing some XNet development on embedded RT targets. Particularly the Linux RT hardware with the embedded UI. This is a very neat platform and allows for a UI on RT without needing an industrial PC to talk to. So having support for things like importing a database from a USB drive, or exporting a database would be features I'd hope were supported by XNet but apparently it isn't.

I made a post here describing my use case where an engineer would like to come up to a system with a database on a USB drive, and be able to select it and start logging data back to the USB drive. Then I thought when the data was being logged, the database used could be exported and saved with the raw data. This way the data being taken could have a copy of the database used for tracability. There does exist a SQLite database on the RT target but it is not in any form that is useful for importing in XNet.

So this idea is to add support for more database manipulation on RT targets, particularly when it comes to importing and exporting database.

Often times, the values of numeric indicators are changing rapidly and it is necessary to create Calculated Channels with Averaging [Smoothing] functions to make it easier for the operator to interpret the data. When you need to do this for dozens of channels, this is very time consuming for the end user and requires unnecessary resources of the RT controller in performing these calculations.

With charts, it is possible to edit the Streaming Rate, but with Numeric Indicators this is not possible.

Request:

Add an option in the Configuration Pane, for the numeric indicator selected, to Average the channel value by xx points (n)

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Simplified Device Drivers Installer

The current Device Driver Installer dialog is not obvious to use. First of all you have to figure out which drivers that you need for your products and then you would probably prefer to remove other unnecessary drivers. However, this is a tedious process with a lot of dependencies.

I have seen many people just installing everything (with its drawbacks) to be safe, eventhough they only needed the NI RIO driver.

I'd like to see a more user friendly dialog where drivers are automatically selected.

My suggestion is that the user instead filters out the drivers on a product level like this:

Let say you choose Modular Instruments. Then next page could let you filter on what type of instrument you have; Scopes, FlexRIO, DMMs, RF, Switching etc...

One of the buttons in the bottom would be something like "Add more products?" so you could iterate this process and finally all needed drivers would be filtered out.

What do you think?

/Pelle - NI Sweden

Include RAD into MAX ...

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To be specific, I am talking about the link below from the 3.x NI License Manager (this is on a VM I use for LV 8.5 development)

Web Activation.png

It had the nice feature of filling in your computer's information and all the products you are activating as part of the link. Unfortunately, NI's website no longer supports this pre-filling - using this link in 3.x now just redirects you to the normal result of typing in ni.com/activate into your browser.

My typical workflow with this screen would be to enter my real serial number into the preceding dialog, use this dialog to get the activation link, go back to the preceding dialog and enter in a fake serial number, press next twice to get the activation codes entry dialog, and copy the activation codes into the dialog.

In NI License Manager 4.x, you either need to use web activation (which saves your serial number everywhere) or enter codes manually, requiring a trip to http://ni.com/activate for every product that needs activation (and trying to figure out how the name of an application in License Manager - say "Vision Development Module Runtime" - matches against the website's entries - say "Vision Development Module", "Vision Development Module (FRC)", "Vision Development Module Runtime (FRC)", and "Vision Runtime") and a bunch of e-mail spam if you choose to get a copy of the activation e-mailed to you. Note that activating LabVIEW alone requires two of these trips (or at least used to), as the Professional Development system and the Application Builder activate separately.

As far as why I often don't want to use the built-in Web Activation, it stores your serial number on the computer. This leads most (I think LabVIEW 2017 is an exception) versions of LabVIEW to display your serial number in their splash screens and about boxes - this could be visible in a public setting or at a customer site. It also stores the serial number even after you deactivate it, so if you temporarily activate a tester while you are doing its initial debug, your serial number will be stored for your customer to reactivate (and possibly distribute).

I labelled this as MAX, as there is no License Manager Idea Exchange - in a way this applies to all NI products.

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VeriStand looks in specific directories for plugins. This makes source code control and configuration management difficult for our ADG customers. If Veristand.ini allowed customers to provide paths (plural) to VeriStand plugins, then the plugin destination directory could be under SCC/CM and isolated from COTS plugins. For example:

AdditionalCustomDevicePaths = "C:\Projects\Resolver;C:\Projects\Valve"

AdditionalFPGAPaths = "C:\Projects\EMF"

AdditionalToolsPaths = "C:\Projects\RTSA"

etc.

Request for evaluation by a user group and update of VeriStand System Explorer user interface. The System Explorer user interface has changed little in several years - small improvements, such as allowing the user to enter formulas using the PC keyboard rather than the interface within the Calculated Channel Configuration Page would be significant. As an example, the INERTIA Calculation Custom Device is more user friendly and intuitive.

Additionally, the ability to better organize Calculated Channels, Alarms, Aliases, User Channels, etc. after creation would be helpful. For large projects, where we have dozens of variables and calculated channels, it is a significant amount of work to organize after the variables or calculated channels are created. Creating folders beforehand to help organize is a workaround, but after the fact, using the Cut and Paste functions are clunky - the ability to drag and drop would be preferred.

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Undo function in Veristand Sequence Editor

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VeriStand natively includes several Action VIs that provide the critical ability to run code on the gateway when a certain action is performed. Most often, this is used for executing code that cannot be run on Real-Time but needs to coincide with an event within VeriStand. This can also be achieved with VeriStand services, but is more complicated. I think that additional Action VIs, specifically ActionVIOnDeploy and ActionVIOnUndeploy would be very useful. And I'm sure there are additional ActionVIs that others would find useful.

This is a bit of a feature request for the service request manager and/or as a stand-alone (my NI web) tool!

It is needed because the NI webpage makes it terribly hard to search for CAR#'s and a CAR# is only listed when solved, and only listed for the one version where it was resolved, making it nigh-on impossible to check lists of (new) CAR#s and get notified when they are resolved.

For example, I know this CAR exists, but I'm not sure if it has been resolved and the NI search just didn't find it, or if does not exist (user input error for example) or anything..

The tool should reside on "my NI" but it should be possible to export/share the list of monitored CAR's (so colleageus/companies can maintain one master list of company relevant CAR's).
The tool should connect/check against NI (ideally directly to a back-end database) and return any "public" information related to a CAR, such as "in progress", "known work-around", "details" etc. along with driver/software version where it was resolved (if any).
The tool should present a clear list (ideally with green checkmarks / red cross icons) showing the status of each CAR and maybe a synopsis/one-liner from the description to indicate what problem the number is for.
wish-list added feature: allow (on a per user basis) the user to add personal notes to a CAR (e.g. this affects projects x, y and z, once resolved, refactor those projects to remove performance intensive work-arounds!) or similar.
e-mail notification (optional/configurable) when the status changes on any of the tracked CAR's.

As far as how it relates to the service request manager, I would prefer a separate tool but that it also can link to the service request manager as outlined below:

A small but significant number of tickets either relate to, or create one or more CAR#'s (or at least mine seem to create a large amount of CAR's).

When a support tech adds / associates a ticket# with a CAR#, ideally this CAR# would be automatically added to the user's CAR Tracking list..

In addition it would be great if the back-end database tracked CAR#'s and offered up a list of these numbers in the webpage overview, for example next to the "status" column. Taking it a step further, it would be very nice if NI could make it simpler to check if a CAR has been resolved and if so, what version of LabVIEW it was resolved in/with. This information could be displayed in the same web page table, or a new page to itself. The "Status" column could then also be expanded with a green check-mark if (all) associated CAR#'s have been resolved..

Tracking CAR's and manually trying to search and check them off lists locally is labor intensive, especially since the web-page "search" does not do even a passable job when you enter CAR numbers.

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Detailed Error Description in NI I/O Trace

I/O Trace is extremely useful when debugging system-level text-based applications. Error handling for systems involving multiple drivers + software packages (RF toolkits, for example) is very difficult. After recognizing there was an error, we still have to determine which device threw the error and then query the appropriate driver/toolkit with the correct handle to determine what the error was. NI I/O Trace is a great way to quickly determine which device threw an error and at which function call. Unfortunately, the error reporting returned by I/OTrace is pretty limited. For example, consider the I/O Trace shown below of an application synchronizing two waveform generators. A property is not configured correctly for one of the generators. I/O Trace clearly indicates there is an error, however the exact cause of the error is difficult to discern from the message:

The actual error message is: “The Sample Rate property can not be configured if OSP Enabled is VI_TRUE. “. It would be great if I/O trace could provide the entire error description. Compare this to the LabVIEW error handler:

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Add Save Options for VeriStand Project

Real-time sequence console out

[Edited on 8/28/2014 by moderator Diego Carvajal (dcarvaja)] [Image included in original post as requested] To help debug medium and large real-time test sequences, it would be very useful if there was a sequence step that allowed the user to specify a console message.

Much like the Print Debug String VI helps debug issues when building custom devices, this step would allow the developer to insert specific console flags and see what part of his/her real-time sequence is executing.

Benefit: Simplify the process and reduce errors when using FPGA personalities

Idea: Querry the user-generated FPGA diagram and automatically create the XML file. Additionally, have some kind of editor/viewer for the XML file that would present the information similar to how it is presented in the System Explorer but allow the user to edit certain values (or just make it editable in the system explorer). Some items would be read-only (items specific to the bitfile communication) and others would be editable (heirarchy, scaling, etc).

Ultimately, the process for using FPGA Personalities would be:

- create FPGA VI using NIVS interface/template

- select interface in "utility/view" or System Explorer (XML file automatically generated)

- edit default settings if desired

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For security reasons, many customers using Volume License Manager to administer licenses to client machines do not authorize users to download and install anything from the web. Therefore, if a critical patch is released, the client machines are unable to download this unless it is distributed by the administrator. It would be useful for the VLM administrator to be able to configure the Update Service such that all Users can run the Update Service but the service has been configured to point to an internal network share rather than an internet location outside the firewall. This way, the administrator could make critical updates and patches available for the client machines and the clients can be notified and install them.

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Additional NI Software Idea Exchange

XNet Database Editor hex mode for arbitration ID

Automatic notification of changes in the known issues lists

Add TestStand Semiconductor Module instrument simulation capability natively to NI MAX

Improve XNet API Support on RT Targets

VeriStand Screen Numeric Indicator -> Built-In Averaging & Smoothing

NI Update Service should retrieve list of updates before notifying user

Simplified Device Drivers Installer

Include RAD into MAX ...

Bring Back the Web Page Activation Link in NI License Manager

[VeriStand] Allow INI-based Paths for Plugins and Dependencies

VeriStand System Explorer User Interface Update

Undo function in Veristand Sequence Editor

Better Mapping user interface in VeriStand

Veristand - Include Additional Action VIs

my NI "CAR tracking and status tool", ideally tied to the web "service request manager" (Had to choose "MAX" as "label"...)

Detailed Error Description in NI I/O Trace

Add Save Options for VeriStand Project

Real-time sequence console out

Simplified XML Generation for FPGA Personalities

VLM and Update Service: Allow Administrators to control what patches are installed by clients via Update Service