Darren's Weekly Nugget 02/15/2010

[Darren]

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jcarmody wrote:

I'm missing something basic.  What situation would be improved by programmatically creating build specifications?  The API's existence tells me that there are use-cases.  Could you give me a for-instance?

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I believe there are internal teams here at NI that use the App Builder API to programmatically interact with build specs, but I don't know any details about their specific applications.

[shew82]

@gmart:

That VI is very useful for built applications (I use is a whole bunch), but doesn't allow somebody to determine the version in the build spec itself, only in the end result (so one would have to build the build spec before knowing what version it was).

@jcarmody

One use case where this would be useful for me is that some more complex applications have a whole number of process that need to be done to form the final build, such as building plugin files, making sure we have up to date files from SCC, building an exe, building an installer, adding 3rd party software to installer Volume folder, building ZIP/ISO, uploading to a FTP server, etc.

Shaun

[Jason_P]

I know I'm almost a year late to the party here, but I was wondering if the Installer API has moved forward at all... It would be helpful to be able to specify source and destination locations on the fly for my installers...

Thanks,

JasonP

[Darren]

There are currently no plans to add installer support to the App Builder API.  I suggest submitting an idea to the LabVIEW Idea Exchange if you want to drum up community support for the idea.

[ryan_k]

Does the "Add Always Included VI" only support adding VIs to the build?  I tried programmatically adding classes to my build with the VI, but was unsuccessful.