LabVIEW
Alternative to LabVIEW for UI Design
I'm looking for an alternative to UI design.
I have read through this forum post and did find it useful - but am looking for further suggestions.
https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Cross-platform-alternative-to-LabVIEW/m-p/4363383#M1281685
Background:
I am the sole LabVIEW developer in our software group. At one point we used LabVIEW for everything, but have transitioned to other frameworks. Now we mainly use it for UI design. An example is pasted below. This UI consists of ~90 different panels, 1000+ Sub-VIs, and many custom controls/indicators (usually using 2D Picture controls).
Communication includes:
- UDP
- Serial
- XNET - CAN
We have several UI's for other vehicles, similar complexity, but they do share common panels when possible.
The Problem:
The dilemma with LabVIEW is that it conflicts with out quality procedures. As the sole developer, my code does not get reviewed. And if I am not available due to holidays or illness, then there isn't really a backup for code updates. There are other issues, like licensing costs, binary nature of the code, difficulty to find other developers, CI/CD and a general desire by management to move away from LabVIEW.
I've been using LabVIEW for ~16 years, and I find I think graphically when presented with a problem. I would be quite happy to stay with my current scenario and keep developing in LabVIEW. However, I feel if I don't propose an alternative, ideally one I am confident in using, one will be proposed for me.
I have started to look at alternatives that would incorporate the strengths of the other developers (C++/Python) and would accommodate our needs. Sadly I have been out of touch with most text-based languages. I have played around with Python, Java, C++ and used to code Fortran a long time ago. For UI development, I have mainly looked at Qt - PySide6. Mostly as a starting point to get back into text coding. I think with the resources available (ChatGPT, FreeCodeCamp) a transition to a different framework won't be a painful as I imagine.
Requirements:
- Needs to run on windows machines (laptop or desktop).
- While a cross platform framework would be nice, it isn't necessary at this point.
- Popular - online resources available, as well as developers.
- Flexible or Limitless - if someone asks me if I can do something with LabVIEW my answer is always yes.
I would like to look at up to Three frameworks over the next few months, but don't really want to waste too much time looking in the wrong direction.
If you have any suggestion I would love to hear them.
Thanks
Relec.
I had experience with Qt, QML, .Net and lately Imgui.
I would recommend you take the library, which makes you connecting the business logic backend to your UI the easiest.
Is your backend C++, go with QML or more fancy Imgui. Pyside Qt is not fun compared to native c++ Qt btw.
.NET (incl. C#) is multi-platform, much more than LabVIEW is.
At least, if you program in right the .NET environment (Mono, .NET standard).
Mono is compatible with .NET Framework 4.7, except WPF. XAML is supported though, so that could be a good UI alternative. You could probably even make it work from LabVIEW. It has nice editors, so you might not even need to know much C#..
Note that although there are more C# programmers, compared to LabVIEW programmers, if you add XAML or whatever UI framework to the requirements, the pool of programmers gets smaller. Add technical (physics) knowledge to the list, the pool of programmers gets smaller yet again. Both are on most LabVIEW programmer's CV.
In my experience most (young) C# programmers are outsourced and will be switching job after 2 years, taking their knowledge... You'll spend more time onboarding, hopefully keeping someone to do the onboarding.
Search LabVIEW like a graph! 