Lycangeek

LabUseful

Not sure how many of you are also subscribed to the info-labview group, but there was a posting recently of some very useful pages that I wanted to rebroadcast here. If you are looking for some LabVIEW code to help out your development, or have some that you would like to contribute, then you should definately check out the pages here and here.

If there is something you'd like to contribute to the index, but don't have a website, then just go ahead and post them up on either the LAVA or DevZone forums and then link to them there.

PS. Yes, I'm still on vacation...everyone else is still waking up this morning so I thought I'd just jump into the email-bag for a bit.

Let there be Events!

Sorry for the delay in posting, but with LV 8 finally getting out the door, there has been a backlog of issue to take care of, and...I'm going on vacation! Time to visit the family for a bit, so I thought I should get this post out before I go.

For those that want to just download and go, I've updated the ZIP file containing the Event Log example - try it out.

For those wanting more information, read on...

Give LV8 a Try!

I'm happy to report that you can now download the full version of LabVIEW 8 for Windows for evaluation. One of the new features of 8.0 is the licensing engine that lets you try out the complete package for 30 days. Of course, if you are a SSP subscriber, you can activate it right now.

So - now is the time to try out all the new features I've been talking about!!!

Event Log, Part II

I love when I try to show something simple and then sit there, scratching my head, wondering why the simple thing doesn't work! This was the case in trying to show how to create your own log in the NT Event Log (see previous post). For those in a hurry, the example ZIP file has been updated to let you specify the logfile you want to log to. But beware the problem that bit me!!!

Also, rereading the post, I realized that I forgot to mention a very big reason you would want to use the Event Log! Logging! If you want to log informational or error messages from your application to a permanent location and have a nice, graphical viewer for the log messages, the Event Log is your friend.

Anyway, let me explain what went wrong...

Better Support

Yesterday, I received an email with a very interesting idea - could LV automatically convert clusters into System.Collection.Hashtable and vice versa?

Well, the idea needs to be fully thought out, but it is intriguing. Obviously, it probably couldn't use the new .NET 2.0 generic collections as LV clusters are typically groups of different types, but that is exactly what the current hashtable supports.

That got me thinking about other ways we could improve the experience of LV and .NET. Obviously, many of you have not yet had the chance to try out LabVIEW 8, but feel free to comment anyway - what could be better? What have you done and asked yourself, why doesn't LV handle this for me?

This is a call out to the LV and .NET users to help do a bit of brainstorming to improve the experience of the integration of the two.  Please post a comment or shoot me an email.

Thanks!

Event Log

Thinking about what to post on next, I thought I'd post up some simple VI's that access handy routines in the .NET framework. These topics are going to be as I run across them, but if there is something you would like to see, feel free to shoot me an email with your desires.

To start with, let's look at the Event Log...

SourceForge

If you don't know, SourceForge is one of the largest websites dedicated to open source development. I had not realized this, but according to Open G, SourceForge has just accepted LabVIEW as its own entry in the software map of programming languages...Seems a bit behind the times, but there you go.

I'm interested to see if this helps sparks more effort in open source project for LabVIEW or not.

Chance Update - The first walk

It's been a while since we last heard from our intrepid explorer, Chance the Sheltie, so I thought I'd share this morning's experience.

Finally!

Yes! It is finally official - LabVIEW 8.0 (aka Constellation) has been announced.