VI Tester Development Guide

Disclaimer: This document is a rough draft.

Building VI Tester package from Source Code

• Apply the VIUnit.vipc VIPC file located in the root folder using VIPM
• Note that calling build.vi (the next step) does not rebuild the project provider. You will need to rebuild the project provider, if needed, as described in the Developing the Project Provider (from Source Code) steps below
• Run the build.vi VI in the root folder to build VI tester -- the built package will be put in the root folder

Developing the Project Provider (from Source Code)

Apply the VIPC file

• VIUnit.vipc VIPC file located in the root folder using VIPM.

Install VI Tester package

This will make sure that the actual VI Tester libraries are UI are where they need to be.

• Install the latest VI tester package
• Exit LabVIEW (and keep it closed)
• Delete all files in the <LabVIEW>\resource\Framework\Providers\vitester folder

Copy Project Provider Source Code to the installed Provider Location

• Copy the source folder <VI Tester>\source\LabVIEW Project Plugin to <LabVIEW 2013>\resource\Framework\Providers\vitester (we'll do our development here)
• Re-open LabVIEW and we should see that the project provider for VI Tester is running from source code -- yay! You'll know this for sure, if you see the VI Tester buttons on LabVIEW Project Toolbar. If you don't see those buttons, it means that the project provider didn't load, so you've got some sort of problem (like maybe the VIs are broken and can't run).

Unloading the Project Provider to do development

Development of project providers is hard. You'll probably want to NOT have the project provider loaded by LabVIEW as you're doing your development. Do do this, do the following:

• Exit LabVIEW
• Rename the <LabVIEW>\resource\Framework\Providers\vitester as LabVIEW 2013\resource\Framework\Providers\vitester-src -- this will cause LabVIEW to not load it, since the provider's INI file (<LabVIEW>\resource\Framework\Providers\GProviders\VITester.ini") specifies the provider path to be <LabVIEW>\resource\Framework\Providers\vitester
• Restart LabVIEW and you can now work on the provider, since it won't be loaded by LabVIEW and reserved for execution.

Testing your Development Code

Now that you're ready to test your changes to the project provider do the following:

• Exit LabVIEW (to unload all the project providers)
• Rename the vitester-src folder back to vitester
• Re-open LabVIEW and we should see that the project provider for VI Tester is running from source code -- yay! You'll know this for sure, if you see the VI Tester buttons on LabVIEW Project Toolbar. If you don't see those buttons, it means that the project provider didn't load, so you've got some sort of problem (like maybe the VIs are broken and can't run).

Building the Project Provider (from Source Code)

• Follow the steps above for Developing the Project Provider (from Source Code)
• Follow the steps in Unloading the Project Provider to do development to make sure that LabVIEW doesn't have the provider source code in memory
• Run the Build VI Tester Project Provider.vi file to build the project provider
• The built provider will be located in <LabVIEW>\resource\Framework\Providers\vitester-built

Testing the Built Project Provider

You can test the newly built project provider by following these steps:

• Exit LabVIEW (to unload all the project providers)
• If the source folder is in the vitester folder rename it as vitester-src
• Rename the vitester-built folder to vitester -- this will cause it to be loaded by LabVIEW
• Re-open LabVIEW and we should see that the built project provider for VI Tester is running -- yay! You'll know this for sure, if you see the VI Tester buttons on LabVIEW Project Toolbar. If you don't see those buttons, it means that the project provider didn't load, so you've got some sort of problem (like maybe the VIs are broken and can't run).

Did your tests work? Are you ready to commit them to the project? Follow the next steps, below...

Copy the Built Project Provider into the main project folder (.git repository clone)

Copying the built project provider back into the main project folder will ensure it gets built into the full VI Tester package.

• Delete the source\Built Project Integration folder in your .git repository clone
• copy the built project provider files (<LabVIEW>\resource\Framework\Providers\vitester-built) into the source\Built Project Integration folder of your .git repository clone and add/commit them to .git as you see fit

Clean-up \resource\Framework\Providers

It's important that you clean up the <LabVIEW>\resource\Framework\Providers folder:

• Delete the any vitester-built, vitester, or vitester-src folders you created
• Uninstall the VI Tester package using VIPM -- it may say that the files in the <LabVIEW>\resource\Framework\Providers\vitester folder are not found -- that's OK, because we deleted them for our development and testing