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NI TestStand Idea Exchange

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TestStand environments are really great.

But launching SeqEdit with a specific environment is not straighforward: launch SeqEdit, select the environment, restart... or use a specific script to manage the command line launch of SeqEdit with /env argument...

Why do no provide a file association in Windows when installing TestStand? Or when changing the Engine version ?

I'm able to associate *.tsenv files using this powershell script (requieres elevated rights plus powershell execution policy trick):

$extension = ".tsenv"
$classType = "NationalInstruments.TestStandEnvironment"
$commandLine = "`"%TestStandBin%/SeqEdit.exe`" /env `"%1`""

New-Item -Path "Registry::HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/$extension" -Value "$classType" -Force | Out-Null
New-Item -Path "Registry::HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/$classType/Shell/Open/Command" -Value $commandLine -Force | Out-Null

This way, a double click on my environment file launches SeqEdit using that specific environment file.

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Obviously it's not a great idea to have loads of nested conditional steps, but for longer sequences even with only a few nested conditions, I find it hard to find the matching END for example when an if-statement. Sure I can count the number of lines, but I think it would be a lot easier if the "scope line" that indicates the scope would stand out more and become bold or blue (like the selected line)

Here's are two mockups (bold line)

An alternative indication could be to highlight the ending line of the scope like below.

Having a keyboard shortcut for jumping between beginning and the ending within a scope would also be very helpful!

In Microsoft Visual Studio there's a keyboard shortcut (CTRL + [ ) which toggles the cursor position between the and and beginning of a scope, and it works with all things that encapsulates a scope or a string or expression. e.g. curly braces in code sections, quoted strings etc.

With the removal of the GAC from TestStand, it's now the user's responsibility to include common .NET assemblies in their source to be leveraged in TestStand. It would be great if I could go the menu, launch the Nuget Package Manager, download packages from nuget.org (and my local Artifactory repo), and unpack these assemblies into a specified target folder.

While I'm primarily focused on .NET and nuget, the same thing could and should be provided for VI Package Manager and lvlibs, lls, vis, etc.

Open file dialog update

Show matching Parenthesis

Do you ever write an expression in TestStand with a bunch of parenthesis () and get lost halfway through trying to figure out which pairs are open and which are closed. Well, I do. Every Day. And I spend accumulated hours a week just trying to keep track of which ) goes with which (. If I'm lucky I can look for a little red item in the expression, or click on the check expression checkbox, but when I have a 'only runtime evaluatable' expression I'm out of luck (which is rather often) ). Some languages/editors have a parenthesis matching, where the ) your cursor is on causes the matching ( to get bold or flash. Others start coloring each pair a different color, so it's easy to see them all. Why can't TestStand do something like this????

when manipulating data between different system, JSON string are very usefull to have a standardize, simple and readable exchange format.

Python or LabVIEW can dump structure (dictionnaires or Cluster) to JSON and vice versa.

It can be very usefull to allow to dump a TestStand variable or container to JSON and vice versa.

It can be good to have also a way to have native function in string functions to read, write or add a specific value in a JSON string.

MaximeR

When monitoring values within a loop in TestStand, it is often desired to only record step failure results. It would be useful to have a "Result Recording Option" of "Enabled On Step Failure":

This is possible through various means (SequenceFilePostResultListEntry callbacks and other custom code). However, I believe this would simplify TestStand sequence development significantly.

The settings field can easily become too long to see every active option and there's not necesarily any consistency between steps if they have differing options. What I mean by that is if you only set the "Do Not Record Result" (my favorite) option in one step, it will be on the left of the settings field. But if you now set several options on another step, the settings are not lined up so that it becomes hard to see at a quick glance which steps I forgot to not record (because TS still doesn't default to not recording steps). You have to analyze the settings line for each step.

I propose something more graphical and ordered. Here's my idea of at least ordered. The text could be replaced with icons representing each setting.

Then it would be graphical, ordered, and concise. What more can you ask for?

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In instances of nested expressions, it would be useful to be able to press tab to indent a line. I propose inserting "n" spaces when pressing tab.

Coding style of course varies, but for readability, I rather dislike the following

Trim(Locals.SomeLocal) == "" ? (Locals.SomeLocal = "foo",Locals.AnotherLocal = "bar", Locals.SomethingOrRather = "zoo") : False

...and much prefer this styling:

Trim(Locals.SomeLocal) == "" ? (
                Locals.SomeLocal = "foo",
                Locals.AnotherLocal = "bar",
                Locals.SomethingOrRather = "zoo" ) : False

...but at present the latter is tedious because one has to insert a lot of whitespace manually or worse yet, use another text editor and paste it into TestStand. It would be nice if TestStand's expression editor supported this basic feature available in almost every text editor or IDE.

Thanks,

Mr. Jim

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It would be nice to be able to "fold" control flow blocks (like if - else -end, while - end etc.). Despite the vertical lines connecting the control flow steps on the same level, it is sometimes very hard to find where a long control block actually ends or what the condition for the "end" is you are currently looking at.

In such cases it would be helpful, if the entire control flow block could be hidden under its first line, tree-view like with a +/- icon to show/hide the interior of the block.

Regards

Peter

Currently, you have to choose between these options on each file (and the only indication of the choice is in the sequence file properties dialog). Both options can be quite useful in the Parallel and Batch Model (of course there isn't much of a difference in the Sequential Model). Clunky workarounds also exist like using Shared File Globals and having arrays for anything per-execution or using Separate File Globals while putting anything shared in Station Globals or in LabVIEW Functional Globals, but I think native support for both in the same file would be much cleaner and easier.

This could be just having two "FileGlobals" categories in the Variables pane (I prefer this), or it could be a right-click option on each individual File Global.

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I would like to see attribute information included in watch views.

use case, image from TS2025Q3:

If I add a variable to the watch view of an executing TestStand execution in Sequence Editor, I am able to see variable values, but not able to see/manage Attributes the way I can in most every other view.

Notice in the Variables view that Parameters.Result.TekStep.Limits shows with the pencil glyph that it has attributes able to be managed.

Notice in the Watch view that Parameters.Result.TekStep.Limits has Attributes (see red circled expression).

Notice that in that same Watch view that the view of Parameters.Result.TekStep.Limits does NOT show a pencil glyph to show that there is an attached attribute at that layer that can be managed.

I would like to be able to edit/manage attributes in the watch view.

At a minimum I would like to see a grey-out disabled glyph to show that there are attributes but I can't edit them.

Even better I would be able to click on the glyph and see/view the attributes (in a read-only manner).

Ideally I would have full attribute edit/management/change capability the way I do in any other variable view location.

Embarrassing disclosure: we burned over a week of combined engineer time because we didn't see any indication of attributes attached to properties in the watch view and we were expecting to see some indication. Hopefully this can get implemented and save someone else that same mistake.

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The built-in Wait step currently causes TestStand to simply stop at that step until the specified period has elapsed. For steps longer than a few seconds, it would be nice to have some sort of indicator to show how much time is left to wait (and to show that the computer hasn't locked up on those waits that are more than 15 seconds).

It would be really nice to have a check box option to show some sort of wait indicator, even if it was simply using the progress indicator in the lower right corner of the screen (something that simple could even just always be enabled).

On a related note, could the progress bar be made wider so that there is more resolution as to how much progress has been made? If there was a ten minute wait for something, the bar would be moving very slowly and hard to tell progression was being made.

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Add "Close All" files option

If you have opened a bunch of sequence files (TS2025 sequence editor), closing all of them is frustrating.

you can click on the "x" for each sequence file. With the new placement of the "x" on the tab rather than docked far right in the UI you need to move your mouse for every file that you close.

you can file >> close myfilename.seq for each file (this takes a long time)

you can ctrl+w a whole bunch of times (great if you remember all your hotkeys)

you can right click on a sequence file and choose "close all but this one" and then close "this one" (cool trick, but you need to remember it)

you can go to Window >> close all windows. (this is great, but not a place that makes sense based on other software UIs)

I propose adding File >> Close All menu entry. This would essentially do what Window >> close all windows selection does, except that it is in the location that people will look for it based on experience with other software packages. This way TS behaves more like what we expect from other software packages. My experience makes me look for "close all" in the file >> menu somewhere next to the file >> close this file entry.

This is a carryover from an earlier idea that got halfway implemented (when the close "x" got moved to the tab).

Right now in TS2025 out of the box sequence editor, if you have a file name that is really long, it just gets truncated in the tab. This makes sense if you have lots of tabs open and are going to be competing for space, but if there are only one or only a few files open, there is lots of extra space that could be used to clarify the file name.

Request is: if you have extra space in the UI for tab sizes to get bigger, make the tabs large enough to display the full file name without truncation.

I'm taking a bunch of steps and trying to put a "If" flow control step around them.

Kinda like this:

But what I end up with is just a If/End statement in the middle of the steps that I selected (well, after the first step in the selection)

What I would have liked to see is this:

Whare the If/End wraps the steps that I selected.

I don't quite know how best to handle the situation where the steps you have selected are not sequential (there's an unselected step in the middle), but that could probably just behave how it is now.

NI TestStand Idea Exchange

Enable Project (.tpj file) in Workspace Pane to show the content of a defined directory automatically

Associate tsenv tile extension with command line to launch SeqEdit with the specified Environment

Git Integration: Custom Domain GitHub Enterprise Support

Highlight the scope of selected a conditional step

Integrate Package Managers into Sequence Editor

Open file dialog update

Show matching Parenthesis

Review all idea Exchange and Update status

Add JSON string function

Add Result Recording Option "Enabled On Step Failure"

Visual settings in the steps pane instead of a (sometimes) mile-long text list

Support Tabs and Indentation in Expression Editor

Folding editor for control flow

Have Both Separate File Globals Per Execution and Shared File Globals in the Same File

Watch View: change to show attributes

Add progress bar option to Wait step

Add "Close All" files option

Make FileName Tabs Larger in Sequence Editor

Insert IF on selected steps automatically wraps steps

Update the Callbacks Dialog to use Checkboxes