Software tools - The SAS Workshops Blog

a CI pipeline diagram from Gitlab showing a pipeline one project triggering a pipeline in another downstream project

Cascading Pipelines and Triggers

Triggering a CI/CD pipeline in another repository is actually easier than you think.

The LabVIEW Getting Started Screen for LabVIEW 2025Q1. Prominent buttons for Create Project and Open Existing.

Continuous Integration , How to , Software Engineering , Software tools , Docker

LabVIEW in Docker on Linux

LabVIEW in Docker on Linux is here now. NI made an announcement at NI Connect, but you don't have to wait for 25Q3!

A LabVIEW UI for Blue Formatter. Has buttons to start and stop autoformatting, a text status windows plus a few extra buttons

Software tools , Open Source , Software Engineering , Legacy Code

Blue Improvements

I've added a whole bunch of new features to my Blue Formatter!

Software tools , SCC , How to , Software Engineering

New and Improved LV Compare Script

Setting Up LVCompare just got even better. Now you get the TestStand sequence compare tool as well.

Software tools , Software Engineering , How to

Copying and Renaming Classes

LabVIEW can exhibit some unexpected behavior regarding the class Localization string when copying and renaming classes.

A screen capture showing part of an SQL Query and the results below in a table.

Software tools , Kata

Easy Way to Practice Your SQL Skills

SQL is a very valuable skill for all software developers. Here is a good way to brush up on it.

How to , Software tools , Open Source

FileWatcher

Want to get notified via LabVIEW Events when a file changes on disk? Now you can!

Unit Testing , Software tools

LUnit

LUnit is currently my preferred unit testing tool in LabVIEW. Here is why.

How to , Software tools , Open Source

Enable LabVIEW Dialogs

Have you ever had issues with Windows file dialogs not appearing when they should in LabVIEW? If so, check out this tool.

Software tools , Coding Philosophy , Software Engineering

Quick VIAN released on VIPM

Using VIAN analyzer can be a pain. Here is a way to do it quickly and easily.

Continuous Integration , DevOps , Software tools

Pylavi

Pylavi is a really simple tool to add to your CI/CD toolbox.

SCC , Software tools , How to , Continuous Integration , DevOps

Git Tip: Find All Changed Files

One way to speed VI Analyzer or Blue is to only run it on changed files. Here is a way to do that.

Software tools

Rainbow Terminal in honor of Pride Month

Here is a cool little tool from Felipe Silva to allow you to easily use color in your terminal output.

Unit Testing , Book Reviews , Software tools , Python

Python Testing with PyTest

I recently read the PyTest book. It is quite good. If you are looking to learn Python, I recommend checking out PyTest. Unit Tests are a great tool to help learning a new language.

Software tools , Unit Testing , How to

Approvals New Features - Date Scrubber and Custom DiffTool

Have you tried out Approval Testing yet? if no, why not? It's a great way to tame Legacy Code.

Unit Testing , Software Engineering , Legacy Code , Resources , Software tools , How to

Approval Testing For LabVIEW 2.0 Released

If you haven't tried approval testing yet, you definitely should. It makes unit testing a lot easier, particularly for legacy code or for verifying complicated objects.

Software tools , Continuous Integration , DevOps , Software Engineering

SAS-GCLI-TOOLS Update

The first step in setting up CI/CD is being able to perform common tasks from the CLI. Here are a set of tools to do just that.

A screenshot showing a Git Bash Window. The command is`g-cli blue -- .` The output is "5 Files Processed 2 Formatted"

Software Engineering , Software tools , Legacy Code , Resources , Announcements

Announcing the Blue Formatter for LabVIEW

If you like Nattify, you'll probably like this tool. It lets you run Nattify on an entire directory from the command line.

How to , Software tools

Publishing AntiDoc Documentation using GitLab Pages

I just discovered GitLab Pages recently. It has been around for a while, so this may not be news to anyone, but I'm sure it's news to at least one of my readers and I've found a somewhat novel use case for it, so I decided to do a blog post about it.

Software tools , Announcements , Frameworks , Resources

Automatically Generate Sequence Diagrams

Sequence Diagrams are essential for designing, understanding, and debugging concurrent systems. Here is a tool to automatically generate them from running code.

Continuous Integration , Software tools , DevOps , SCC , How to

Git SubModules and GitLab CI

I generally prefer using VIPM to share code, but sometimes submodules are useful. However, using them with GitLab CI can be tricky.

Unit Testing , Legacy Code , Software tools

Approval Tests

Unit testing for legacy code can be really hard. Approval testing can make it easier.

How to , Software Engineering , Software tools , SCC

The Absolute Easiest Way to Setup LVCompare and LVMerge

Setting LVCompare and LVMerge is as easy as copying a few lines of code and running them in Git Bash.

How to , Continuous Integration , Software tools , Webinars

Build License Track

Matthias from Studio Bods, recently presented at our Mastermind Group on his tool that allows you to Build, License, and Track (BLT) your LabVIEW programs.

Sam On Joel , Software tools

Character Sets

So here is another article inspired by Joel on Software. In this article, titled The Absolute Minimum Every Software Developer Absolutely, Positively Must Know About Unicode and Character Sets (No Excuses!), Joel talks about the importance of understanding Unicode and character sets. It is a bit of a rant (Joel