NI TestStand Idea Exchange

The MOST annoying part of working with TestStand is the fact that the developer has to re-enter e-v-e-r-y bloody value for a given parameter when the prototype changes in a LabVIEW VI.  I seem to recall that older versions of TestStand would allow the user to do that, but the more recent version don't.  Maybe my mind is playing tricks on me and this was never possible..

In any case... When dealing with two parameters which have over 300 (yes!! THREE HUNDRED) entries, this is a bloody nightmare!!  Doing it once is nightmareish.. Doing it multiple times is a death sentence!!!  Sidenote:  I inherited the code and cannot change its structure...

In this particular case, the valeus are all Locals.

The first idea on this subject is to allow editing the original parameters when making changes to a prototype (LabVIEW or any other source).  Or as the sister idea to this one, allow to Copy & Pate the contents of a container!  See this thread!

When working with multiple long sequences it would be nice to bookmark locations making it easy to find where you were previously working.  The bookmark could be line highlighting or an icon on the left gutter.  Bookmarks would be saved with sequence.  Multiple colors or icon would be available.

It's a relatively minor gripe, but wouldn't it be nice to be able to center justify a message in the MessagePopup step type?

Step.MsgFontData.Justify

...is strangely missing.  It could be an integer as in LabVIEW:

0 = Left

1 = Center

2 = Right

Yeah, I know it's easy to write code to produce a custom dialog, but it seems simple enough that it should be there natively.

Thanks as always,

Mr. Jim

See thread https://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-TestStand/Automatically-quot-Default-Value-quot-of-a-Parameter-in-a/m-p/3785701/highlight/false#M57087 for description of that case.

The solution could be to add a new flag: "UseDefaultValueByDefault" 

currently the behavior of the date function is (1) get a short ("MM/DD/YYYY") or long form date string ("Weekday, Month D, YYYY")with nice easy boolean input, (2) pass it N local variables to get all the discrete parts and assemble it myself with a bit of STR() and concatenation.

could we create a permutation on this date() function, (does one already exist) so that I can just pass it a %<> syntax string and have it format the current date to my desired format?

specifically, I'm looking for a non painful way of building a "YYYY-MM-DD" style string for a report (or even just DD/MM/YYY) without having to lug around 8 locals and a lengthly expression, or call into a LV VI. 

We have basic string format symbols available for the STR and VAL functions, why not for date? if anything passing this 1 parameter might save alot of folks creating a bunch of locals because they can just ask for the time item they want directly, and then VAL() the output text to get the numeric data if they need it?

it'd be awesome if the function supported standard DB format tags such as (http://www.w3schools.com/sql/func_date_format.asp) or failing that, was consistent with what LabVIEW's time format strings were.

Just a thought. Has anyone worked around this in a reasonable way?

--Elaine R.