Setting a group property as a date?

[Julia Dawkins]

Hi,

I would like to create a custom group property that is a date.  In the DIAdem 10.0 DataFinder, if I do a search on "File - Creation Date", the logic box gives me some neat options, "Date Equal, Date Before, " etc.  I would like these same logic options for my new custom group property.  How can I set this up? 

Thank you!

Julia Moeller

[Brad_Turpin]

Hi Julia,

Unfortunately, this is a gap in the version of the DataFinder that ships with DIAdem 10.0-- the only date/time property that you can edit that the DataFinder will recognize as a date/time property is the one on the File level which shows up as "Storage time".  If you are setting that property in a DataPlugin, its programming name is "datetime".  The contents of that property are imported into DIAdem as the "Storage date" and "Storage time" string properties on the File level.

There are ways of creating custom date/time properties with different names and on the Group and Channel levels, but they will not be recognized as such by the DataFinder that ships with DIAdem 10.0 or by DIAdem 10.0 itself.  The DataFinder will show the property and its correct value as a string property, and when the file is imported into DIAdem 10.0 the property name shows up in the Data Portal but the property value is always empty.

Sorry for this inconvenience,
Brad Turpin
DIAdem Product Support Engineer
National Instruments

[Julia Dawkins]

Hi Brad,

Thanks for your answer.  I have thought of a few plausible work-arounds, but wanted to make sure that there wasn't an "easy" way out.  This should be fine for now.

Are there other versions of the DataFinder that do not "ship with DIAdem 10.0" such as beta versions, etc.? 

Thank you again!

Julia 

[Brad_Turpin]

Hi Julia,

The next versions of both DIAdem and the DataFinder will go into their Beta periods at the beginning of Fall this year.

Brad

[Newton2k1]

I find that DIAdem should be adapted more and more to the features, given within LabVIEW and I guess the main strategy of NI is like this.

For DIAdem a feature similar to LabVIEW would be highly desirable:

Treat the date and time as number of seconds since Jan. 1st, 1904 (like on Macintosh computers) but allow entering in human readable way, which might be a calendar and digital clock input combo or simple text field.

Whith this absolute date-and-time integer number it will be very easy to search ranges or calculate time, if a few functions are provided therefore, as e.g. "convert absolute time to date and time string" and vice versa.