Additional NI Software Idea Exchange

When adding a Licensing server especially from FlexLM there is no confirmation message that a valid server has been added. This would be nice to avoid confusion of users connecting to this type of licensing Server.

After running a compilation, the Functional Safety Editor produces several files, including the actual bin file for uploading to the 935x module, plus a compilation report and other compilation results. The FSE manual recommends reviewing these output files for correctness.

Problem is there's no quick way to open these files for review. So I think it'd be useful to provide a button to open File Explorer to the folder containing the files produced by the compilation.

LabVIEW has a nice feature allowing an arrow to be drawn from a comment and attached to a block diagram element. This makes commenting specific parts of code much more precise. The Functional Safety Editor lacks this feature (and is inefficient to comment in general). When adding verbose comments to the diagram, it can be unclear which comment belongs to which state or transition.

The proposed idea is to add the same comment/arrow functionality from LabVIEW to the FSE, so comments can be attached to a transition, state, compound state, etc.

Comments can be added to the diagram in the Functional Safety Editor, but only when dragged from the palette. It's second nature in LabVIEW to simply double-click a blank area of the block diagram and begin typing to add a comment, so the lack of this feature in the FSE is really jarring.

This idea is to enable double-clicking an empty area of the diagram to automatically insert a comment, without the need to drag it in from the palette.

The Functional Safety Editor lacks a pan tool for navigating the diagram view. The only option is to use the scrollbars + mousewheel.

This proposal is to add a pan tool, activated by a keyboard+mouse shortcut. This could be Ctrl+Shift+Click (like LabVIEW) or Space+Click (like NXG). This would make navigating the diagrams of larger safety programs much quicker.

LabVIEW provides access to a list of recently opened Projects and Files, which is handy for quickly resuming where you left off. The Functional Safety Editor lacks this feature. Combined with the default file dialog issue, it makes reopening user programs a time consuming exercise.

The idea is to add a Recent User Programs menu item to the File menu, listing the last 10 or so user programs (just like LabVIEW).

(Labelled this as System Configuration API, but the FSE is its own product)

Currently the Functional Safety Editor file dialog always defaults to the path %userprofile%\Documents\LabVIEW Projects\Functional Safety Programs when opening or saving user programs. This is regardless of where the user program was opened from, or where the program was last saved to. This is unlike LabVIEW, where it will always remember the last used directory and use that as the starting path for file saving/loading.

The default file dialog path for the FSE can at least be changed in %localappdata%\National Instruments\Functional Safety State Machine Editor 6.0\Preferences.xml (under the key NationalInstruments.Shell.ApplicationFeatureSetDefaultDialogDirectory) to a more sensible default path (the root of your preferred version control system). Even so, it is still tedious needing to change folder paths to a given project for every save or load operation.

A better UX would be to remember the last used file path, and use that as the starting path for any file open or save dialogs. Much less clicking and navigating required.

(Labelled this as System Configuration API, but the FSE is its own product)

強制ドットは意図的でないデータ型式の変換を警告するが、データ形式が同じでもタイプ定義の有り無しが異なると強制ドットが付く。

これは疑似エラーであり、データ形式が異なる真性エラーをマスクしてしまい、強制ドット警告の品質を劣化させている。

従って単にタイプ定義有り無しの違いに対しては強制ドットの色をオレンジ色にするなどしてエラーレベルを落とす方が良いと思います。

また、ブロックダイアグラム中の強制ドットの検索方法が提案されているが、強制ドットは常にバックグラウンドで検索して欲しい。ちなみにプログラム実行に支障が有るときは実行指示のボタンの形が変わり実行出来なくなるが、強制ドットなどがある場合にはボタンの色が変わり、右クリックなどで警告の一覧表が出て、それぞれを確認できる仕組みが欲しい。

特にタイプ定義を使っているとタイプ定義の修正の結果、意図しない場所で、新たな警告が誕生する可能性があり、毎回意図的に強制ドットの探索を掛けるのは非常に煩わしく、失念する要因となる。前記の機能があれば、修正直後に副作用を確認できる。

Hi,

For a reason I don't know, NI Softmotion team remove the function "write position setpoint" to all 951x axis. I'm using four (4) 9514 axis right now that all need to use this function at sometime in my code.

This function is really useful when design a motion tracking system and also for PID tuning to check step response.

I can't upgrade to LabVIEW 2018 for this reason without non-desired work-around.

Please work on reenabling this fonction on all 951x axis.

Hi there,

as my volume license manager is not able to handle more than ~850 registered computers, I need the creation date or register date of a computer to run a proper inventory every month (no usage AND present also last month -> deletion of computer).

I need this function urgently to have a stable service and license allocation.

BR
Lennart

I frequently switch between developing at my desk, and debugging in the lab. After I switch work areas, I sometimes find that LabVIEW is still open on the other machine (usually just the annoying splash screen for LabVIEW projects). It would be nice if the NI License Manager allowed a force-check-in of remote Network Licenses so I could reclaim my seat without walking back to close an application.

We have VLA Named-User licenses hosted from our NI VLM server. If there are no Network License seats available, LabVIEW should notify the user. Instead, it opens the Activation Wizard and starts prompting for serial numbers like a standard non-VLA install. It's not intuitive, especially to new LabVIEW users, or new members of a VLA.

National Instruments has terabytes of software. And, new software is being released everyday!

It is becoming increasingly difficult to find specific versions of NI Software. Occasionally marketing will change the name of a package, or a specific software package becomes bundled into a much larger install file.

By having a BitTorrent option it would greatly speed up the download process of NI software.

Also when multiple packages are needed such as Real-Time, and FPGA it is simple to create a list of downloads that are linked by a BitTorrent Seed link. 

When attempting to create links to the NI website downloads there is are guarantee that the link will work years from now. Where with the BitTorrent a long as there are peers available the BitTorrent link is 'mostly' functional. 

By placing NI software on a BitTorrent downloads will be faster. 

This same concept could be extend to additional tools such as the JKI Package manager. 

Of course BitTorrent would not replace the traditional website or FTP downloads from NI since many larger companies block P2P transfers. With that in mind many companies allow exception to this rule with a legitimate business need. 

This seems to be a sensible option. It could be part of the the licensing agreement with colleges. A slight educational discount in exchange for hosting NI software on there BitTorrent services along with their Linux Distros.(i don't know if that would be an option)

As a contractor I can easily spend a day or more just downloading NI software with each client I work with. And, then (on rare occasion) I run into the hassle of downloading the wrong version or language only to repeat the download. 

The NI website does a lousy job identifying (grouping) packages by release date to ensure that all downloads are in lock step with each other.

Having BitTorrent Seed links would not help that, but it would greatly simplify communications to others on a team what was downloaded.

The image below is an example of what adding a BitTorrent link would look like.

It would also be nice if NI also added a SHA checksum along with the MD5 checksum. The MD5 has been proven to have security weakness and it is possible to fake a MD5 checksum. This would be a nice security check if the software was going to be downloaded form the BitTorrent eco system. 

Heck, why not have NI create their own BitTorrent Client that would only list and optimize NI software for downloads?

It could be a mixture of FTP/website/and BitTorrent file download options. 

Am I the only one that has experienced the pain of repeatedly downloading and managing software from NI?

Add an unattended installer option button to all (practical) installers so that no single dialog prevent the installer from continuing.  It will accept all default options and reboot if necessary without intervention.  I believe that this option is sometimes available if launched from a command line, however he button option would be a nice alternative.

Hi Everybody,
I'm a student, and now i'm interning at a company that wants me to develop an industrial vision system.
I would like to ask you if i can use NI vision builder for automated inspection (VBAI) with the Labwindows/ CVI
If so, how? and what are the difficulties that may affect me?
THANK YOU for your help !
Best regards,