Offline Feeds, Sub Folder Detection

[Furbs]

I've setup an offline feed, removed the file for the online default feed so NIPM will load faster and not throw any errors. 

Now, I see that my LabView GUI can actually make a package for me. That sounds cool, it can even make sub versions. Great! Built-in, compiled version control! 

However, when you setup NIPM you give it the feed, it doesn't search all the subfolders there for other feeds. The new version is in a new folder under the main. How do you successfully use this feature? Am I expected to run a script on all computers that tells them to look at the new version location? I think there's a step I'm missing to make this really slick and allow the users to roll back to whatever version they want if there's an issue. 

[CL_eisenwr]

What version of LabVIEW are you using? I have been using LabVIEW 2019 and do not have the append package version option. Can you just uncheck that and every build is in a single feed?

[SteenSchmidt]

I think you’ll be disappointed if you expect to be able to roll back to a previous version with NIPM 😕

[Furbs]

@CL_eisenwr

That screenshot is from LV 2021 32-bit.

[Furbs]

@SteenSchmidt

I'm not looking for anything fancy with changing dependencies, just an automatic way to keep compiled installers in case there's a large bug that was missed. Currently I make the exe installer and just rename the old folder before I do so I always have a version to roll back to.  

[Scott_Richardson · Accepted solution]

You are correct in that NI Package Manager registered feed URIs specify a path to a folder where Packages.* files must exist, and does not do some search in subfolders.

The way the LabVIEW feature is implemented its feed build feature, the feed is built in (a) single directory with option to append, or (b) to a unique directory based on the version. So to have NI Package Manager register the latest build, you need to use build option (a), or when using (b), post build script a way to update your %localappdata%\National Instruments\NI Package Manager\nipkg.ini file to point to the highest version subdirectory.

[Furbs]

Option B just isn't very scalable and I thought the whole reason for packages over large ISO for offline was kind of the scalability of it. There's no command to the Update-Feed to include subfolders or something, is there? Really, the main Packages file just has to know about the package (and have a feature to reference something not in its root)

It's unfortunate that there's no pre-build option for script action, I could write a simple script to archive the old package before creating the new. I guess on that same note, I can use the Append option and write a script to copy it to the main feed and update the feed too. Would be easy. I just always try to use the "Vanilla" feature as best I can so I'm not sure how most people utilize the subfolder feature smoothly. (when I don't use vanilla and do what should be possible, I find myself in edge cases and listening to tech support (not NI specifically) scratch their heads saying "that shouldn't have happened")

[Furbs]

Oh! There is a --recurse and --packages-from-feed options! That's what I need I think. I never looked at the -help for the command, just the online documents on how to create one. 

I imagine when you build a package, it also sends a feed-create --append to that folder to add it's package to the list? Create-Feed takes a bit to run as is, --append is probably instant. 

Are other people using JKI Package Manager Pro to create their feeds that has some tool I'm missing? Is JKI Package Manager out of date and NIPM and Labview can do almost everything it can? I'm just using command lines to nipkg.exe and batch files/powershell (to download and such as well)

[CL_eisenwr]

The JKI VI Package Manger is older and geared to deploying LabVIEW code, not system software like NIPM.