Add progress functionality to Internet Toolkit FTP library

[PhillipBrooks]

When using the LabVIEW Internet Toolkit FTP library to transfer large files, there is no way to determine the progress.

I propose a notifier be added to the FTP Registry object data. This notifier would be updated by the low level TCP Read Stream and TCP Write Stream vis and monitored by a UI to display progress of the transfer.

See this NI Forum post...

FTP transfer progress bar

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&message.id=470946 

[zenthoef]

In addition to a progress bar, I think it is a good idea to add a status notifier and cancel button as well. We were using some FTP VIs to move data from our test machines to an ftp site. However, we moved away from this for two reasons:

1. We had no idea if the VI hung up trying to connect what it was doing. The status indicator might say the following steps for a good connection: connecting, connected, transferring (this is where Phillip's idea would be implemented), and then done.

Additionally, when it did hang up we never found a way to cancel the transaction besides the default time out. Adding a way to cancel the transaction or at least reduce the timeout would be helpful.

[Jervin Justin]

Hi Phillip,

We just launched a new branch of the NI Idea Exchange to foster ideas for LabVIEW Add-ons. The intent was to create a place for LabVIEW Add-on developers (both NI R&D and developers in the community) to find ideas that matter to the community.

This is part of our ongoing effort to enable LabVIEW developers to productize LabVIEW code. Some of the other things we’ve done this year were adding Licensing & Activation for 3^rd Parties, launching the Compatible with LabVIEW Program and the LabVIEW Tools Network.

We’ve identified your particular idea as one that could potentially be made into an Add-on and would like to move it to this new Idea Exchange so that Add-on developers can easily find it. Would this be okay with you?

Thanks!

[rex1030]

It seems like whenever an idea gets moved to an idea exchange other than the main one it stops getting kudos... just an observation.

I think this is a very good idea. Currently if you are ftp retrieving a file, you cant even poll that file location to see the size of the file as it grows. If some sort of way to indicate progress of ftp operations it would be extremely useful to the user.

[PhillipBrooks]

Well, the LabVIEW Internet Toolkit is no more and the FTP functions are now part of the base installation.

Maybe after the changes to the NI Code Exchange are complete we can submit an improved version of the FTP library.