DQMH Consortium Toolkits Feature Requests

Any reason not to?

IMHO, it would make more sense to have the Stop Module request at the same level than Start and Sync functions.

In DQMH 7.0 you can create private requests now. This is a feature that I really like and the more you use something, the more ideas come to you.

In my current project I created a private request and shortly after I realized, that I need to call this request from another module. I tried to convert the private request into a public request, but this wasn't easy.

So here comes my idea: why is the conversation (public requests → private requests and privat requests → public requests) not included in the Convert DQMH Events dialogue? That would be the place where I would intuitively look for it.

Well, it is a corner case, but I somehow ran into the situation, that the xml metadata at <LabVIEW Data>\DQMH Module Templates\ defined a name for the API tester which was not correct, resulting in an error 7 message

Please add the path, which the scripting is trying to copy to the message, as a first hint.

Adding a note to check the XML would be a second nice hint for the user.

Offtopic: Lastly, I wonder, why the name of the API Tester needs to be present in the XML at all. I was expecting that the module validation fails, if the tester doesn't match the naming rule, which is also applied, when a module is being renamed. A quick test shows, that my assumption is not correct: The API Tester of a module can be named randomly. I am pretty sure, I have applied Fixes to API Testers via the validation dialogue in the past and I wonder how that works, if the naming rule is not required 🤔

It would be awesome if the DQMH validation tool could go back more than one version.

eg.  If you open an old piece of code (that was written in say DQMH 4.2), the only way to upgrade it to 6.1 is to one version at a time, upgrade the code step by step.  This would mean the following:

 - Install DQMH 5.

 - Run Validation tool

 - Install DQMH 6

 - Run Validation tool

 - Install DQMH 6.1

 - Run Validation tool

This is a rather painful process, and when faced with this, I have decided to simply implement the module again starting from the latest version, and porting the code over rather than go through that.

Neither approach is obviously ideal.

We really need a tool that can convert an older module up to the latest standard.  This will become a more common problem now that we have DQMH-based code out there from 2018 onwards.  The more people use it, the more this problem will surface.

I have 'barebones' singleton and cloneable module templates that I always use when creating new DQMH modules for projects. I started with the shipping module templates and removed:

- 'Do Something' events

- All #Bookmarks

- Simulate EHL/MHL error buttons

I propose DQMH ship with these simple module templates. They help save several minutes when creating a new module. I'm not suggesting changing the project template, but rather simply adding two new options in the Add New DQMH Module drop-down:

I'm open to suggestions for different names. 🙂

The problem I want to fix:

I want to be able to try to fix or poke the code more when an error occurs in the API Tester. The opportunity of going to the block diagram or attempting to send a different request goes away because the API Tester, by default, closes when an error occurs.

How I propose fixing it:

The first thing that I change on an API Tester at the first error is to remove the OR connected to the stop terminal in the loop and add an error indicator at the end instead of the Simple Error Handler and connect a local variable for the error. Would you please vote to have DQMH do this by default and have a validator to modify existing API Testers?

Current API Tester:

Proposed change:

Thanks,

Fab (yes, being the DQMH Lead Architect does not guarantee that all my wishes are turned into reality 😉 )

Handle Exit.vi executes Hide VI Panel.vi.

If the module's front panel is inserted into another front panel via a subpanel, the main panel will be hidden, which could cause the entire application to disappear.

The solution is to use the Remove VI method before the Stop Module API method.

An example illustrating the use of subpanels with DQMH would be interesting.

It would be nice to have an example provided with the framework to demonstrate the implementation of a plugins architecture with DQMH :

Main Application (sources) <---> Plugin Interface (PPL) <---> Plugin (sources or PPL)

I would like a new option in the DQMH-> Event menu and two options within that sub-menu for changing the scope of request events.

A new Change Request Event Scope sub-menu with the following options:

And the following options within that action:

1. Change Request event from Public to Private
2. Change Request event from Private to Public

This would be helpful for properly scoping events in projects that are inherited and all events are set to public.

Thanks,

Scott

Today when an event is removed, no special actions are done in the testers and a 'manual search' has to be done in the module's main VI.

Here is what is suggested in DQMH help :

• In the case of a Request:
• In the Tester VI:
• Open the block diagram and find the event frame configured to test calling this request.
• ...
• In the DQMH Module Main.vi:
• Open the block diagram and find the event frame configured for this request (It might no longer be listed and instead say something like “Unknown Event (0x0)”).
• ...
• In the case of a Broadcast:
• In the Tester VI:
• Open the block diagram and find the event frame configured for this broadcast. (It might no longer be listed and instead say something like “Unknown Event (0x0)”.)
• ...
• In the Module Main VI:
• Open the block diagram and find the places where the broadcast VI is called and remove it.
• ...

It would be nice to attract dev eyes on the places where modifications need to be done post event-removing.

Maybe adding a comment like this would be enough ?

It is not much, but the comment color and hashtag would ease the 'finding' process.

This feature request is adding to the already existing "Private Request" and "Helper Loop Creation" requests (or not?):

When working with helper loops in cloneable modules, it would be nice to have a way for sending messages from the MHL to the helper loop which doesn't need the module ID, and which doesn't interfere with other clones' helper loop timings. I'd still like this new mechanism to look and feel like the regular events, with all the scripting and other goodness.

Maybe instead of calling them private events, a better name would be "local" events (which would, of course, be set to private scope).

Today most of our screens support a 1920x1080 resolution.

And the actual space that I can basically use in the MHL is 530x315 pixels (roughly, surface of the MHL minus subdiagram comment).

Which means that my useful coding surface is only 30% of my screen resolution.

I guess the EHL and MHL can be designed wider so that we have more space for our custom code.

I am aware of the note that is being shown on the "Remove DQMH Event" that states: 

" NOTE 2: You cannot remove the last private event from a DQMH module. Once a private request has been created, the module requires at least one private event to be present." 

The request i believe would come in handy, is that instead of "hiding" or "not showing" the one and only private request, to instead show it as available for deletion, and when pressing OK, populate the information on a popup that shows what NOTE 2 said. 

This with the objective of not giving the user the notion that DQMH scripting tools are broken, especially the ones just beginning to use DQMH.

Please add a test to the Validate Module tool:

Find all while loops in the Main.vi of the specified module(s), and check if the DQMH Error Handler - Helper loop.vi is used to handle errors in each of the while loops, and flag it if not.  Ignore the default EHL and MHL in this check.

When validating a number of modules and going through the list of fixes, it's sometimes hard to keep track of what has already been fixed.

It would be nice to have some information on which failures were already fixed, and whether the fix was applied successfully or if there were errors or if there's a need for manual work.

I just put some icons into the screenshot to illustrate my idea - my feature request asks for a prettier implementation 😉

All DQMH modules come with a Module Timeout--constant.vi:

This value defaults to 5 seconds, but I've worked with many modules over the years (usually having to do with serial devices) where this value is modified. I find it tedious to have to dig into the timeout VI any time I want to find out what the timeout actually is. Especially when I'm working with multiple modules at the same time that may have different (legitimate) timeout values. So I propose the following:

1) The default modules that ship with DQMH should include the timeout value in their icons:

2) There should be a Validate test that ensures the Timeout VI icon displays the correct value, and provide a fixer that will update the icon if it does not.