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LabWindows/CVI Idea Exchange

Improve comfort when working with graphs

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When operating graphs in Labview, it is easy to change the scale of an axis of a graph (at runtime): to change e.g. the maximum value, you select the current maximum value with your mouse, type in the maximum number you want and hit enter. To achieve the same in Labwindows, you have to use a numeric control and a button, which is a bit cumbersome. The same applies for zooming: In Labview, you can click a small button attached to the graph and select the way you want to zoom, and then just use the mouse. In Labwindows, you have to know that zooming is done using the ctrl button, ctrl+space restores the previous setting, etc. It would also be nice to be able to enable autoscale by right-clicking on an axis and having a popup menu which allows to do so (just like in Labview). And if the user changes e.g. the maximum value while autoscale is enabled, it would be nice to automatically disable autoscale (unlike in Labview).

So in general, it would be nice to have more comfort in operating graph controls.

Thanks.

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Add a serious report printing tool to CVI!

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At present CVI is missing a serious report printing facility that permits to create flexible, professional and good looking reports.

A quick search in CVI forum shows that periodically somebody posts questions about reporting but available instruments at the moment are not satisfactory in my experience.

As far as I can tell, a good reporting instrument:

Should integrate easily with CVI
Should be fully documented, with some example for the more typical types of reports (text + table, text + graph, text + image...)
Should not rely on external programs (some customers have rigid constraints on the software installed on equipment machines; additionally, asking them to have full Word or Excel or Diadem installed only for reporting is just not serious)
Should not rely on ActiveX controls to be licensed separately (same as above)
Should permit to include text and graphics (images, graphs...) and define headers, footers, page numbering and other common features normally present in reports
Should output data directly to the printer or in PDF format
Should have a preview facility both for development and for the user (something that NIReports hasn't and will never have)

configure batchbuilt; only compile certain projects...

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Hi,

I would like to see an configuration of batchbuilt process. I have a big workspace with many projects; and would like to create different setups, like "compile only all server projects" or "compile all client projects". The workspace contains a big server-client -based software packages; some dll-projects used for server side only, some only client side.

Peter

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Please Allow CVI the Ability to Automatically Add Drivers from IDNET to the Instruments Folder - CVI Instrument Driver Finder

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I noticed that LabVIEW has two ways to download instrument drivers: direct downloads from IDNET and through the NI Instrument Driver Finder.

[NI Instrument Driver Finder Menu Option Image]

[Alternative NI Instrument Driver Finder Menu Option Image]

When downloading drivers directly from IDNET, the file must first be unzipped and then placed in the <National Instruments>/labview xxxx/instr.lib folder.

The easier option when working with LabVIEW, the NI Instrument Driver Finder, downloads the files, unzips them, and instantly gives you access to example code or palette of VIs for communicating with said instrument.

If possible, could we add a similar tool to LabWindows CVI? It would be nice to have a menu option which would open a CVI Instrument Driver Finder.

The interface could then allow users to easily find a driver, download it to their Instruments Folder, see example code and start work.

Since probably 30% of all LabVIEW adoption comes from driver downloads and driver development, maybe this is an investment of resources worth looking into?

[Image of NI Instrument Driver Finder]

[Image of Instrument Driver Finder example code, project access, and palette access]

Cheers,

Shawn Shaw

Add callback events for MultiTouch Capabilities in Windows 7 to LabWindows/CVI

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Please conisider supporting multi-touch screen gestures in a similar manner to the mouse events. Windows 7 Mulittouch capabilities are a good place to start. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/magazine/ee336016.aspx

The GUI of the future will most certainly be touch screens, and users expect to be able to use gestures such as pinch, fling, spread, rotate, etc.

Launch proper CVI version upon double clicking a CWS (or PRJ)

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This would make it a bit easier to edit an old project without the issue of upgraded UIRs because it might get loaded by the wrong CVI version and one edits and accidentally saves it before noticing.

Visual Studio installs a helper EXE which launches the right Studio for any SLN.

If MS didn't patent this , it would be a nice feature for CVI (and LabView?), too.

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Add an attribute to set vertical alignment for label text

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If the label area is fixed size (i.e. option "Size to text" disabled) and is higher than the font height, it would be useful to have an attribute to set the text vertical alignment:

to the top
centered
to the bottom

Now the text can be justified only horizontally (left justified, centered, right justified)

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Better "auto numbering" in UI editor when you copy and paste a selection of controls

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If you have, say, three controls called MAX_1, MAX_2, MAX_3 arranged vertically. If I select them all, copy and paste, the new controls appear as MAX_4, MAX_5 and MAX_6 but in the wrong order to what you would expect.

i.e.

MAX_1

MAX_2

MAX_3

becomes

MAX_1

MAX_2

MAX_3

MAX_6

MAX_5

MAX_4

A similar issue occurs with assigning a group of controls to a control array, they always seem to be in the wrong order, usually reversed.

change TUI file format to xml (or create a new xui...)

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I would like to have the possibility to store the uir-file not as a tui-file (old-fashioned ini file), instead as a xml file.

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lines of code, ...

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I would like to see some statistic informations about my cws and or prj-files. Like the "LinesOfCodeWichtel"...

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Tree Control: Copy Selected Rows to Clipboard

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- edited

It would be nice if you could copy the selected rows of a tree control to the clipboard.

tree example.png

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Creation of subfolders in the project window

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In the project window you can organize the project files into some "virtual" folders (Source Files, Include Files, ...)

If you right-click on the project name, you can add a folder with the item "Add Folder...".

If you right-click on one of these folders, you can add one or more files files.

But it's impossible to create a subfolder of one of these folders.

Every large project has a lot of files (sources, ini-files, images, icons, ...), so I think it's quite common having them saved into different "real" folders and subfolders. If you don't explicitly add these files to the project, you can add them to the distribution kit browsing your hard disk "real" folders, but in this situation the absolute path of the files is used. And if you move all your project from a PC to another one you won't be able to recreate the distribution kit without errors if you don't save the whole project to the same folder you use in the first PC.

And this is a really big problem.

For files explicitly added to the project, instead, the relative path is used, and this is OK, so the best situation is to add all the files in the project window.

So it's necessary create a full structure of virtual folders and subfolders.

Attachments:

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Sizeable dialog for batchbuilt

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I want the batchbuilt window sizeable.

My cws consits of 51 projects, and the configurations-list is no longer useable. I just can see the project names, but not able to see the "release/debug/..." additional informations of the projects to be built. The list looks like

" c:/../../Task_AutomaticMeasurement.prj - D"

" c:/../../Task_FullAutomaticMeasurement ..."

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Specify the configuration to include into installer

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Using CVI 2010 you can create different Custom Configurations

But I think that if a developer creates a new Custom Configuration (debug or release, x86 or x64), he wants to distribute it to a target machine. I don't create a Custom Configuration to have it run on my developer machine!

I've already asked to NI Support, and this can't be done in an automatic way.

So I suggest a new feature in the "Edit Installer" window to specify which Configuration (Default or Custom) to include into the installer (see attachments)

Attachments:

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Adding C++ programming abilities to CVI

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Customer who has used CVI for years and likes it was looking a Mstudio for the reason that a lot of his new engineers can't or don't do the regular C programming. He likes Mstudio as an idea but, with the extra cost of adding MS Visual Studio and dealing with a they support/We support issues of having two SW pkg from 2 different companies gives him pause about purchasing. He stated he likes CVI because if there is an issue (even if rare) he know that NI will help to figure it out. I let him know I'd provide the feedback.

Proper post mortem debugging support

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The JIT debugger option in CVI 2010 is a nice step in the right direction, but only being able to debug builds that were compiled in "Debug" mode pretty much defeats the whole purpose of the idea. Debug builds are much too slow to be used in production and on my machines, if I ever use a Debug build, it probably already runs under the debugger anyway! Seeing that CVI is not even an optimizing compiler I cannot understand why release builds cannot be properly debugged.

Thing is, the crashes in production are the important ones that I absolutely need to be able to investigate, and CVI does not provide ANY assistance in this area apart from being able to at least generate a MAP file. This is what I currently have to do: I have included code in my application that creates a memory dump and sends it to me when the application crashes or hangs. This dump I can then load into WinDbg and with a few tricks I can at least import the CVI MAP file to get some functions names in the stack traces, but that's it, all investigations have to be done on the assembly level. To quickly decipher stack frames, e.g. to have a look at local variables, I often even have to throw my OWN code into a disassembler (IDA Pro)! I'm really glad that this way I am now at least able to debug most crashes at all, even when they happen far away in a different country, but this aren't the 80s anymore and you can probably imagine that this process is hard and time consuming and very much annyoing. With code compiled in VC on the other hand I can load a MiniDump and have a look at the stack trace, variables and code on the source level without much hassles.

Some ideas that could help:

- Let me (JIT) debug release builds

- Let me load MiniDumps into the debugger or

- create PDB files that I can use together with a debugger that can load MiniDumps (WinDbg, VS)

- Let me not only use an external compiler but also an external linker that generates PDB files for release builds (I don't like this solution as I use C99 features VC does not support, but I'm desperate here)

Okay, rant over for now, I think I really needed to vent a bit. Thanks for reading this far ;-)

All the best, Marcel

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Improved DirSelectPopup function

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Even after using CVI for many years I still find the DirSelectPopup confusing, because it provides a file selector, displays files, and even allows to select files...

I would prefer an improved/modified function such that the DirSelectPopup only shows directories, does not provide a file selector, etc.... This should make it much more obvious that one is selecting a directory, not a file...

Thanks!

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table editor: show number of rows and columns

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Hello,

following the discussion here I suggest to (more clearly) indicate the number of allocated rows and columns in the UI table editor.

I imagine something like

where the left number indicates (as now) the currently selected row, and the right number (11 in my quick example) indicates the number of all table rows.

The same might also be added for the number of total columns.

Thanks.

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Provide clang updates on a (bi)annual schedule

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It was a nice surprise when CVI provided clang as an external optimizing compiler. In the meantime, however, the initial clang version 1.0 has been significantly improved and now is at version 3.0 - but not for CVI users...

I would suggest that NI provides a current Windows binary of the compiler for everyone with a legal copy of CVI2010 or later. As the release cycles of CVI are quite long it would be convenient to obtain, on a biannual interval, interim updates of clang.

Spoiler

On a side note, this also would provide some motivation to keep/renew the SSP. Right now I consider it disappointing if the equivalent of several hundred Euros is a patch of CVI only. Other major companies such as Autodesk or Microsoft provide patches free of charge...

Goto Declaration

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In the process of developing a function one typically has to change the number (and type) of parameters. This has to be done both for the function and the function declaration. Hence I would consider it useful to have an option 'Goto Declaration'.

Right now the IDE provides the right click menu 'Goto Definition', so if I change the declaration it is easy to jump to the function and adjust it accordingly. It would be nice if the reverse process would also be possible...

Thanks.

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