Additional NI Software Idea Exchange

Currently the stimulus profile message box prompt allows user text input, but the user text isn't usable anywhere. I'd like to the text to be returned for use in the profiles/sequences. Thank you.

I'd like to be able to customize the UUT dialog prompt that comes up when the stimulus profile starts. For example, I'd like to be able to see my most recent entries or have them saved in a pulldown for easy repeated access. Thanks.

The only way to edit the order of VeriStand workspace screen pages once they're created is to edit the cryptic XML file where screen pages are referred to by numbers. I'd like to be able to reorder the screen pages from within the workspace. Thank you.

Like how user channels can be grouped into folders, I'd like to be able to group Calculated Channels into folders. Thank you.

I'd like a way to select/deselect dependencies that get sent to the target upon deployment. I understand that all dependencies are necessary for a project to run. However, I deploy one system definition to many targets, and often there are very minor changes that don't need a transfer of all the dependencies which takes time. Also, the fact that the default is to transfer all dependencies means I need to keep every computer updated and sync'd or else a deployment could fail. I'd like the ability to manage which dependencies to transfer and potentially overwrite. Thank you.

In most places around VeriStand, channels can be searched and filtered. However, in the channel logging pane of the simulus profile editor, one must manually dig down through the nodes and select channels independently which requires users to know exactly where the channels are in the structure. This is a pain for large systems (we have 4000 channels including CAN and 2000 channels excluding CAN). Thank you.

Although user channels and alarms can be created under folders for better organization, I don't see a way to:

- move channels/alarms in folders out of folders (without first deleting them and recreating them outside of the folders)

- move channels/alarms out of folders

Being able to drag and drop in and out of folders would make organization easier. Thank you.

The built in CAN information channels for timestamp and time difference are useful. However, to detect a dead CAN network, I'd really like to know the time since a message was last received. The time difference doesn't work because it waits for a next frame before computing the time difference. If I have a 10 Hz frame that is not coming in, it will just display 0.10 s even if no new frames come in. I'd like to have a time since the last message so I can detect if the message is no longer coming in. I was thinking of doing a difference between system time and the most recent receive time, but system time is relative to the start of VeriStand while the CAN receive time seems to refer to real world time. I hear that real world time will be available in VeriStand 2012, so we can more easily do this checking in a calculated channel, but it'd be great to have this feature as a CAN information channel. Thank you.

I have many procedures that check for certain conditions before completing its intended function. If a precondition is not met, the procedure exits. It'd be nice to be able to pop up dialogs as necessary. Right now, in order to do so, I have to have the procedure call other alarms if I want any sort of feedback/popup which gets convoluted pretty quickly. Thanks.

Say I have profileA which calls sequenceB which calls sequenceC. sequenceC needs to access UserChannelX defined in the system definition. Currently, the only way to do so, I believe, is to pass UserChannelX into sequenceC as a parameter which means it needs to be defined as a parameter in sequenceB as well, even if it's not used in sequenceB. This greatly increases the number of arguments of a sequence which may never be used but is necessary in order to give the lowest sequence access to system definition channels. It seems like we should make sytem definition channels directly available at any subsequence level (sort of like how global variables can be referenced anywhere). Thank you.

It'd be great to be able to convert between strings and numbers in the stimulus profile editor. This way we can easily create and use multiple variables that are like:

User1Var, User2Var, User3Var, ..., UserNVar

Also, if we have those channels defined in the system definition, then we could right to multiple variables via parameters in one for loop by incrementing a loop counter. Thanks.

Because we use sequences as function calls, it'd be great if they could return multiple variables or return arrays.

I have hundreds of signals and I want to be able to set a values to them all at once without listing each one individually in every sequence. How do I write to many signals at once?  Is there away to assign all the signals to one variable or array of some type and just write to that variable?  I did not see such mechanism and NI support says nothing similar exists.  Maybe this should be considered.

Whenever I delete a signal (whether it's a custom device, user channel, calculated channel, etc.), VeriStand goes through to delete that signal from anything referencing it. This is often nice but at times undesirable because I may plan to add it back again at a later time with a new custom device with the same signal names, for example. The auto deletion of all references means that I'd need to go back to relink all of the broken references even if the missing signal gets restored later anyway. Some of my channels are used in 20+ places.

 

I'd like to see VeriStand prompt me or give me an option as to whether I want to delete all references. If I choose not to delete the reference, I understand that an error will show up later if I try to deploy or run. Thanks.

The only way to change channel mappings to control and indicators is to right click on each control to change the channel. The work around is to use alias for each workspace item and them modify the alias from the system definition.

 

I think another more convenient option would have the operator use the manage items window from the screen tab to select which channels to display on the workspace. It already shows all the channels connected but it would add plenty of functionality if you could change the mappings from this window also.

 

tldr: Screen>>Manage Items... - ability to change channel mappings

When you install LabVIEW RT to a compactRIO you can/used to get recommended software sets to install e.g. Standard, minimal, scan mode. <br><br>We should have one for Veristand which includes Veristands required elements but not additional packages which could increase the jitter of the system.

The file logging for stimulus profile appears to accept a text list of channels. However, it requires us to remove the Windows carriage return character using an advanced text editor for the list to be valid to VeriStand. I'd like the simulus profile editor logging pane to be able to parses a Windows formatted list without this extra step. Thank you.

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.

In LabVIEW, we have a lot of options for saving our projects as seen below:

 

 

 

In VeriStand, currently, you only have the option for a normal save (as shown below). I think it would be nice to have a "Save As" for saving a copy of the project and, if possible, a "Save for Previous Version".