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AF Upgrade Tool

Attached is a quick and dirty set of scripting VIs that will assist in upgrading your LabVIEW projects from 3.x to 4.x.  This has not been tested in any way other than upgrading my own project in LabVIEW 2012.  Use at your own risk (or convenience).

The VIs are saved in 2011.  Note: This depends on the OpenG File Library to create directories.

Instructions

0. BACKUP ALL OF YOUR CODE

1. Add all your Actor Framework code to a project

2. Open the "AF Upgrade Tool.vi"

3. Select the project path

4. Select the desired destionation (user.lib or vi.lib)

5. Click on the Run arrow

6. Get a cup of coffee

7. When the tool is done running, review which VIs and classes were renamed

8. If acceptable, click save ALL on the project

9. Exit LabVIEW

10. Uninstall/Delete all 3.x Actor Framework versions and Install an Actor Framework 4.x package

11. Open your new project

12. Mass compile

You can also follow David's instructions at https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-23396#comment-23085

Any comments or additions for the tool are welcome.

CLA, CTA
Comments
Ben_Phillips
Member
Member
on

It's a good idea, but I wish I'd remembered to make my 2012 vi.lib read-only in Windows first, before running this.  I have about 40 VI's in vi.lib that just got saved over.  Was this meant to modify vi.lib? 

Ben_Phillips
Member
Member
on

(should have added, not a big deal since I have 2 work computers and can just copy the modified folder from my other 2012 installation.)   I am curious about which part this is supposed to modify, your existing code or trying to modify LV to fit your code?

Active Participant
Active Participant
on

This won't help you now, but here are two ways to avoid similar problems in the future:

  • Work on a virtual machine instead of your host OS. VMWare Player and Windows Virtual PC are free. You can create a "baseline" or a "pre-install" snapshot of the entire machine before taking risky actions.
  • Commit vi.lib to a source control repository after installing any toolkit, NI driver, addon, etc. so you can revert to a given snapshot if something like this happens.
vishots.com
Member
Member
on

If this the case then I would say that this is a very bad tool.

Ben_Phillips
Member
Member
on

Might try this again in the future, editing the original response.

LVB
Active Participant
Active Participant
on

Ben,

I am going to assume the 40 VIs were your original Actor Framework VIs?  If you are using Windows 7, right click on the vi.lib folder and select the "Previous Versions" tab.  You should be able to recover your old files.

The tool simply renames Actor Framework.lvlib VIs from the existing location (wherever then exist) to the "Select a destination" location.  If you select vi.lib, the tool will rename to (overwrite) the files in vi.lib\Actor Framework.  Install the Actor Framework 4.1/4.0 package after this process.

CLA, CTA
Ben_Phillips
Member
Member
on

I guess I'm still a little confused.  I've never tried to modify vi.lib to suit the purposes of existing code.

I just have my 2012 AF project pointed to user.lib for AF files, took 1 minute to copy that folder and have it running in LV 2012.  It just means all the new stuff is unusable until I convert everything over.  It doesn't help at all to simply make vi.lib behave the same and point point my code to vi.lib instead of user.lib.

Or maybe I'm missing something?  After completing this process, are you able to use AF stuff from the palette?  It seems like you'd be running on a modified version of AF after the conversion.

LVB
Active Participant
Active Participant
on

Ben_Phillips wrote:


                       

I guess I'm still a little confused.  I've never tried to modify vi.lib to suit the purposes of existing code.

 

I just have my 2012 AF project pointed to user.lib for AF files, took 1 minute to copy that folder and have it running in LV 2012.  It just means all the new stuff is unusable until I convert everything over.  It doesn't help at all to simply make vi.lib behave the same and point point my code to vi.lib instead of user.lib.

 

Or maybe I'm missing something?  After completing this process, are you able to use AF stuff from the palette?  It seems like you'd be running on a modified version of AF after the conversion.


                   

You are missing something.  The purpose of this tool is to convert an Actor Framework 3.x project to the Actor Framework 4.x project "namespaces".  After this conversion, you should be able to use:

1. Actor Framework as shipped in 2012

2. Any Actor Framework 4.x package

I ran this tool in LabVIEW 2011 (sans vi.lib\Actor Framework).  I then upgraded my project to 2012 (and deleted the temporary vi.lib\Actor Framework folder).  Since there was no vi.lib\Actor in LabVIEW 2011, I did not have any "overwriting issues".  If you would like to do this manually, you can follow David's instructions at https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-23396#comment-23085

CLA, CTA
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