NI TestStand Idea Exchange

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The "Report Options" dialog box provides a lot of flexibilty in the way reports are generated for sequences executing under the Batch model. A new report can be generated for each UUT, for each socket, etc. One option that appears to be lacking, is to flat out not generate a Batch Report. Doing a brief search, I found at two other folks who were trying to do the same thing:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-TestStand/Disable-Batch-Report-TestStand-2014/td-p/3091476

http://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-TestStand/How-do-I-disable-batch-report-in-the-batch-model/td-p/238387

Suggest adding another check box to the Report File Pathname on the Report Options dialog box to disable batch reports.

In order to keep file clean, sequence analyzer helps in finding "potentially unused variables". To delete such variables, each warning in sequence analyzer result has to be double clicked and then delete has to be pressed to finally remove that variable.

In many cases with large sequence file, there could be dozens of unused variables and in a single work-space there are dozens of .seq files.

Is it possible to provide a button or some option to remove all unused variables from a sequence file?

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The TestStand documentation describes the ControlExecFlow user subproperty as follows:

"User can control the flow of execution by setting breakpoints, single-stepping, and using the Set Next Step command. User can use the Run Mode command in a user interface. User can use the Run Mode command in the TestStand Sequence Editor but only if the EditSequenceFiles subproperty is also True."

This description should be amended to include the fact that the value of this subproperty also enables or disables options in run-time error dialogs (Retry, Ignore, Abort, and Break). TestStand users will see run-time error dialogs with different options based on the value of this subproperty.

NOTE: The ControlExecFlow user subproperty description can be found in the online help under NI TestStand Environment Reference Help>>TestStand Sequence Editor Menus, Panes, and Windows>>Windows>>User Manager Window>>User and Group Privileges.

According to this forum discussion the Flow step types behave different compared to other step types, making customization hard:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-TestStand/Where-does-logic-for-flow-control-step-types-live/td-p/2607349

Rectifying the behaviour of the Step types may be out of reach as this would dig too deep into architecture.

But there is a lack of documentation of the behaviour of these steps. E.g. just to mention the fact that step type functionality is in those cases tied to the step type name would help a lot.

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There are many reasons why TestStand is not my language of choice.... I will start with this one... The TestStand Version Selector needs improvements.

If the users are to base the reliability on the interface, then the TVS needs to be much more reliable. When switching from one version to another, the version selector hangs more often than being able to accompish its task. The TVS just sits there pretending to do something... well... it probably was doing something, decided it was lost and then decided to sit and watch the CPU clock cycles go by...

I usually kill the task and try again... By the 3rd attempt, it will somehow manage to switch versions. These attempts give me enough time to write this idea.. After killing the application, I always get the "Unable to determine the current TestStand version" message. This is usually a good sign as the next attempt will probably be a lucky one.

I decided to search the forum to see if others had issues with TVS, and of course, I was not alone. Se the links below:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-TestStand/Operation-failed-popup-when-using-TestStand-Version-Selector/m-p/2354516/highlight/true#M40275

Josh W is not a novice at TestStand...

http://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-TestStand/Problem-launching-TestStand-2012/m-p/2401666/highlight/true#M40716

http://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-TestStand/Microsoft-Visual-C-run-time-error/m-p/860288/highlight/true#M23219

Just how long is being patient? I have waited more than an hour (during lunch) and it still does not swap versions...

I do realize that most issues are related to microsoft visual studio or visual C++, but TSV needs to tell us what is going on or why it is not able to switch version. After all, once it finally changes versions, TestStand is fine. No changes to the PC or any software installation. So the issue clearly points to TVS.

When you improve the TestStand Version Selector, can you also improve the time it takes to change versions? I realize it's too late to improve the architecture of the language where different version could co-habitate together, like LabVIEW, but at least make it a bit faster..

Now that it has selected the approrpiate version, I shall stop my rant... I mean idea and get back to work.

Hopefully all the people who share the same concern will kudo this idea..

🙂

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TestStand now works incredibly well with LabVIEW Classes, but there is a slight annoyance with the fact that you cannot call a Dynamic Dispatch VI with an empty Object Reference. The implication of this is that when you want to use a .lvclass, for every class instance you have to call a VI that does nothing more than return a wrapped class constant which then populates an Object Reference. Technically this is not a problem, but it means that your Sequence becomes very quickly littered with these VI's and it would be nice if there was a way within the LabVIEW module adapter settings for a class member call if when you first call a Dynamic Dispatch VI that, as within LabVIEW you can just pass in a class constant rather than a previously populated Object Reference.

The Problem - All the LabVIEW calls prefixed with 'NEW' are simply returning a class constant.

A Potentially more integrated way of doing this

The Dynamic Dispatch input has the option of either passing in an Object Reference, or a class constant.

All compatiable classes are listed in the value box now - either as .ctls, or alternatively as .lvclasses. This could also possibly be more akin to what happens in labVIEW when you call a Class which has available overrides that it gives you a tree view of the class hierachy to choose from.

Another way you could do this is to have a checkbox adjacent to the 'Class Path:' or 'Member Name:' named 'First Call' or 'New' or 'Construct' that then changes the 'Derived Class

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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.

It is common to want to place a shortcut to a TestStand User Interface or even a TestStand sequence file on the Windows Desktop for each user of a computer. This is done by placing a shortcut in the Windows All Users Desktop directory. Currently, the TestStand Deployment Utility only allows you to create a shortcut on the current user's Desktop. It would be really nice if the TestStand Deployment Utility allowed you to also create shortcuts on the Windows All Users Desktop so that everyone using the computer could see this shortcut on his or her Desktop.

Do you ever have too many custom data types, and it looks something like this

This just really sucks when you have 100's of data types to go through. My list is currently 150 long. That's a lot of clicking on that little arrow at the bottom.

How about something like this:

Go through and reorganize your types

<< insert some whiz-bang graphical editor here that allows dragging/dropping of types into groups -- none of this "move up in list" "move down in list" stuff that we are doing now to move step types in/out of groups >>

Now when you go to insert a type, you see a tree structure and all your types are organized

This would be so much easier to find the type I want.

It would be nice to have some kind of Custom Step which gets triggered when a step is deleted from a sequence. Something very much similar to "OnNewStep" which is triggered when a Step is dropped into the sequence.

We may have an option, say, "OnStepDeletion" to detect the deletion of a step. This will be very helpful in many of the step usages.

The TestStand Flow Control Steps like "IF" and "FOR" use the "OnNewStep" to create an "END" step along with them when they are dropped. But there is no means to automatically remove the created "End" when the "FOR" or "IF" Steps are deleted from the sequence. The proposed "OnStepDeletion" can be handy in such cases.

I hope you all will support this idea as it will make many of the functionalities more efficient.

Regards,
Nitz

(PS : Forgive me if anyone has posted this idea already. I couldn't find any such posts)

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NI TestStand Idea Exchange

Provide mechanism to disable batch report through "Report Options" dialog box

Include diagrams in TestStand documentation showing execution order of process model callbacks

Coloured Lines or Hidden Content for Nested Loops

TestStand Deployment Utility: Clear ReloadLastWorkspaceAtStartup option

Remove all unused variable in sequence file with single click

Improve ControlExecFlow user subproperty documentation

Improve Documentation of Flow Steptypes

Jump to desired row number / Step Number

Ability to Launch Version Selector from Error Dialog

Support Triple-Clicks in text fields

Create Installers in TestStand Deployment Utility from Previously Created Images

Improve TestStand version selector

When calling Dynamic Dispatch VI's Allow A Class Constant To Be Used As An Alternative To The Object Reference

Re-write LabVIEW code for Full UI and Simple UI

Make TestStand support both local and UTC formats.

Add Result Recording Option "Enabled On Step Failure"

TestStand Deployment Utility should support shortcuts to All Users Desktop Directory.

Allow Sequence Adapter to expand containers in the module tab

Add tree structure to data type menu

Custom Step to detect "Step Deletion"