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NI TestStand Idea Exchange

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How many times have you found yourself typing double backslashes "C:\\Windows\\System32\\cmd.exe" or even worse, going through a copied path to change every backslash to a double backslash (and inevitably missing one), just so you can pass a file or directory as a constant to a code module or another sequence?

I'd like to see a symbol for 'explicit string' in the TestStand expression language, much like C# does with the @ symbol.

So if we typed @"C:\windows\temp" we would actually get the string "C:\Windows\temp" instead of "C:\Windows<tab>emp".

To really go the extra mile on this:

Drag and drop could be enabled, so that any file dragged from another window into an expression box would automatically paste the filename.
A browse button could be added to the expression browse dialog which would bring up the usual file open dialog and insert the selected filename.

Message Edited by Josh W on 06-14-2010 12:57 PM

Message Edited by Josh W on 06-14-2010 12:58 PM

When loading large sequence files, TestStand does not display progress and appears to "lock up" both TestStand and the LabVIEW OI. Sequences with hundreds of steps can take minutes to load. Operators often incorrectly conclude the application has stopped respoding during long pre-loads.

I am suggesting to implement a responsive progress display, allowing the LabVIEW OI to proceed execution, and post the following UI Messages during step pre-load.

UIMessageCodes

UIMsg_ProgressPercent–(Value: 11) TestStand step modules post this message to the user interface to notify it to update its progress indicator associated with an execution.
UIMsg_ProgressText–(Value: 12) TestStand step modules post this message to the user interface to notify it to update its progress message associated with an execution.

The sequence editor's (v4.1) diff tool doesn't properly step through the differences if it encounters a "For" loop step or a sequence call step that is a homonym of another sequence call step in the diff window. It basically gets in an infinite loop that can be exited by selecting the next step in the diff window.

Also, if a parameter is added to the parameter list of a sequence and is moved before other existing parameters, the tool doesn't identify the pre-existing steps as identical. It just markes them as deleted from the first sequence and added to the second sequence (therefore it prevents proper comparison).