How to

A collection of 70 posts

Unit Testing , How to , Continuous Integration

Unit Tests for PPLs

So in my Unit Testing Workshop, I talk about taking tests written for libraries and retargetting them to the PPL once the library is built into PLLs. The last time I taught the workshop, someone asked me for an example. I didn’t have a good example to share, so

How to , Linux , Software tools , CRIO

CRIO Tips: Setting up VNC

This a follow on article to a couple previous articles: here and here. Its part of a series of tips that Neil Crossan provided me with, dealing with cRIOs and Linux RT targets. He saw a post of mine and sent me a bunch of tips and tricks. I thought

How to , Linux , CRIO

CRIO Tips: Mounting Network Drives

This a follow on article to a previous article. Its part of a series of tips that Neil Crossan provided me with, dealing with cRIOs and Linux RT targets. He saw a post of mine and sent me a bunch of tips and tricks. I thought I would share some

How to , CRIO , Linux

CRIO tips: Running Linux Commands As Root From LabVIEW

Neil Crossan was one of the people responsible for the forum posts around setting up a Virtual CRIO, which I previously posted about. He saw my post and sent me some more tips and tricks. I thought I would share some of them with you here. Many thanks to Neil

How to , Design Patterns , OOP , Software Engineering

What is a plugin architecture?

I wrote a previous post about ppl plugins and it occurred to me that maybe not everyone knows what a plugin architecture is. So I decided to clarify a little bit in case it wasn’t clear. I’m going to talk in terms of classes inside packed project libraries

How to , Python

Advanced Datatypes with Python Node in LabVIEW

A recent LinkedIn post on using Python and LabVIEW got me thinking about passing more advanced datatypes between LabVIEW and Python. I have written about the Python node before, but I hadn’t really played with advanced datatypes before, so I thought I would play around and come up with

How to , CRIO , Software tools

How to create a cRIO Virtual Machine

Just a week or two ago I stumbled upon a forum post that outlined how to create cRIO Virtual Machine. I’ve written a little bit about Virtual Machines before. Creating a virtual cRIO was pretty straightforward, but it required piecing together several responses in the thread, particularly since I

SCC , How to

View the Git Reflog Graphically

While creating some content for my “Using Git Effectively” course, I discovered something new and amazingly useful. You may know about Git’s reflog and that it provides a chronological history of where your HEAD has been so that you can recover orphaned commits. For some things though, it can

Webinars , How to , Software tools

February 2021 Webinar

LabVIEW Shortcuts – Don’t waste time wiring… February 24th, 10:00am MT We are fortunate to have Stefan Lemmens join us in February. He is going to give a presentation on all the various types of LabVIEW Shortcuts. We are always looking for ways to be more efficient. These tips

Unit Testing , How to

TDD in LabVIEW using Caraya

I’ve written a lot about Unit Testing in LabVIEW. There are a variety of frameworks. My go-to is JKI VI Tester, but JKI’s Caraya has been gaining popularity lately. I finally had time to sit down with it and practice some Test Driven Development (TDD). This is where

Design Patterns , How to

PPL Plugins

I wrote previously about Tom and I’s Gang of Four project where we are creating GOF Examples in LabVIEW. We’ve been getting distracted a little lately, but I have finally found some time to get back to it. I thought I would share with you what I have

How to , SCC

Showing Status in the Git Bash Prompt

Whenever you use Git there is always this conflict between using a GUI and the Git Bash. They both have their strengths and most people prefer one over the other. I feel like in order to master Git you really need to learn to use both and take advantage of

Continuous Integration , SCC , How to , OOP

Branch by Abstraction

In the past I have been a big fan of Git Flow. I still am, but I recently read the book Continuous Delivery and it has me rethinking some things. In particular they talk about Continuous Integration and not using feature branches, which is a very large component of Git

How to , Software tools

Getting Started with 3-D Printing

I did a job a few years ago for a mining company. We were building a tester to test soil samples. I was amazed that many of the parts for the tester were 3-d printed. I thought it was pretty cool technology. At the time I thought it could be

How to

PPL Paths

As some of you may know, we host a Virtual Coffee on Tuesday mornings. It started out as a part of our local LabVIEW User Group ALARM. A bunch of us ALARM members would get together every couple weeks in person for coffee. When COVID hit, we couldn’t do

Design Patterns , How to , OOP

Dynamic Unloading of Classes

In my previous post, I did a demo of the factory pattern. In it I showed how to dynamically load classes based on their path. One thing you may have noticed in that demo is that the classes stayed in memory even after the Test VI stopped running. If you

Python , TestStand , How to

Python Adaptor in TestStand

I wrote a recent post about calling Python from LabVIEW. As it turns out you can also call Python directly from Test Stand as well. In TestStand 2019 a new Python Adaptor was added. Rather than create my own example, I will just point you to the shipping example. It’

Python , How to

Python node basics

I have been learning a bit about Python lately. I find it a nice complement to LabVIEW. Like LabVIEW it is very good for writing quick little scripts and rapidly prototyping things. Unlike LabVIEW, it is not strictly typed, which makes it rather interesting to me. A few years ago

How to , SCC

Setting up LVCompare and LVMerge

EDIT: Since I originally wrote this post, I have come up with a much easier way. I am leaving this post up for historcial reasons, but do yourself a favor and just go here There has been some discussion on LinkedIn and other places about how best to setup LVCompare

How to , SCC

Automatically Creating A Gitlab Repo

I’ve been working on streamlining some of my processes lately. I noticed that one of the one things that takes a little time is creating a new GitLabRepository. It just seemed like it took too much time. Here are the previous steps 1. Goto GitLab Webpage 2. Login 3.

How to , SCC

SSH keys and git bash

So when it comes to git I much prefer ssh over https. I can’t clearly articulate why, I just do. However one thing I noticed is that git bash was constantly asking me for the password for my ssh key. It got annoying so I did a little research

How to , SCC , Coding Philosophy

Changing Git's default branch

In the wake of the protests surrounding George Floyd’s death and the resurgence of the #BlackLivesMatter movement, there has been a lot of talk in the tech community about changing some of the terms we use. There was a lot of focus on moving away from using master and

How to , Random

Right to Repair

A few weeks ago I noticed that the lightning port on my iphone 8 was not working very well. My headphones kept cutting out and the power cord would fallout of the lightning connector. I decided to fix it myself rather than take it somewhere. I had used iFixit before

How to , Software tools

Enhanced State Diagram Editor

I was talking to Fab a while ago and she put me onto the Enhanced State Diagram editor. Apparently it is one of Jeff K’s pet projects. It is a way to create a state machine by drawing the diagram in a special editor that automatically generates the LabVIEW

How to , SCC

Git Reflog

In a previous article, I talked about orphaned commits. First, let’s talk about why they are bad. They are bad because they will eventually be removed by git’s garbage collection algorithm, losing the data forever. The reflog is designed to prevent that (for a time). In my previous