Web LabVIEW UI Builder … you can try it now, kind of

This weekend marked a milestone for the team working on the Web LabVIEW UI Builder that we previewed at NI-Week earlier this year.

We’ve been able to provide access to the application to a limited number of pioneer users. With the pioneer program you get very early access to the software, where your feedback can help direct the product’s direction at a point in development where we have much greater flexibility to redefine feature priorities and revisit design and architecture decisions. The other thing it means is I can start blogging about one of the projects I’ve been involved with and hopefully find a reason to post much more often.

We do keep access limited to people who have expertise and specific use cases the UI Builder can be applied to. With pioneer early access programs it’s also important that we engage a number of people the engineering team can actively engage, and whose feedback we have the bandwidth to handle. Over time as things are refined further and the more coarse grained issues are addressed we’re able to work with more and more people. So if you aren’t accepted into the program immediate please be patient with us. The best way to really get involved in the feedback process is apply for the Web LabVIEW UI Builder pioneer program. If you’re interested please let us know or e-mail me directly (kamran.shah at ni.com) and we’ll get in touch with you.

Over the next couple of months I’ll post here on some of the things we’re trying that are different in the Web LabVIEW UI Builder (as it currently works) from LabVIEW that many of you probably used to. An example is trying to let you create VIs that are purely functions (no UI), think of a sub-VI that doesn’t have to have a user interface with controls or indicators. Architecturally we’re trying to allow that with the Web LabVIEW UI Builder, that does mean there are some differences in the relationship of the connector pane to terminals/controls/indicators. I’m sure it sounds confusing right now, I’ll make sure I post some screenshots and video’s and look forward to your comments. As I said, we’re in a pioneer mode with the UI builder so things aren’t set in stone.

Videos of the Web LabVIEW UI Builder and LabVIEW System Designer

During NI-Week I posted about two of the projects I’ve involved with, the Web LabVIEW UI Builder and the LabVIEW System Designer. The video’s of both of the preview demo’s were posted and you can view them now.

• Video of Web LabVIEW UI Builder
• Video of LabVIEW System Designer

If you are interested in getting early access to either of these two projects, to provide feedback as a customer on the usability and features please visit this page to inquire about becoming a lead user (ni.com/day2).

Preview of the Web LabVIEW UI Builder

During this morning’s NI-Week keynote we previewed a new LabVIEW tool to create thin client UIs. By preview, it isn’t avaialble for you to use today. If you make use of web services to share data from LabVIEW applications on Windows or Real-Time (RT) targets (PXI or cRIO) you will be able to make use of the Web LabVIEW UI Builder to create zero install thin client UIs to monitor and update the data with web services. The editor will be accessible through a browser and doesn’t require you to install something on your machine, well except for the Siliverlight plug-in. The editor and your final application are Silverlight applications.

The image below shows you the UI created using the Web LabVIEW UI Builder that was shown today during the keynote as well as editor hosted in a browser.

Screenshot of Web LabVIEW UI Builder from NI-Week 2009 Keynote

The Web LabVIEW UI Builder has the LabVIEW graphical programming paradigm but there are some differences with how you use LabVIEW today. These exist to provide true thin client editing and execution and of course to also for us to try some new things out in a supporting tool without changing your daily existing experience with LabVIEW. I’ll write more on these in blog posts after NI-Week and ask you to chime in on your impressions.

The best way to really get involved in the feedback process is apply for the Web LabVIEW UI Builder pioneer program. If you’re interested please let us know since we’re actively selecting people to join the pioneer program. As part of the pioneer program you’ll get early access to the software when it’s ready and interact with the product manager, program manager and engineers to help shape the product’s features.