Question: AF Message Maker Folder Creation Heirarchy

[winston.hensley]

How does the AF Message Maker (AFMM) determine folder heirarchy when creating new messages and is there an easy way to update them after changing the method that's being called?

When using the utility that ships with LV2014, the AFMM seems to generate folders like this:

Main Application ->

                                Alpha Actor ->

                                                      Alpha Actor (method VIs live here)

                                                      Alpha Actor messages ->

                                                                                               Message A Msg

                                                                                               Message B Msg

One of my actor's is misbehaving and generating the messages one level higher than the other Actors in my project, which isn't a huge problem but is a source of frustation and wasted energy when organizing the project, because if I move all the Msg classes to a different folder, the AFMM goes right back to putting new/rebuilt messages into what it 'thinks' is the right place to save.

(The Misbehaving Actor

Main Application ->

                              Alpha Actor (method VIs live here)

                              Alpha Actor messages ->

                                                                      Message A Msg

                                                                      Message B Msg

Also, because I don't see an easy way to add input terminals, I've found myself Removing from Project, deleting from disk and re-building the message using the AFMM. I downloaded a utility from the VIPM for interfacting with the AF and it seemed to have a right-click solution for updating the messages, but it created an entirely new directory structure, a whole new message library. This added the duplicate library/filename to the project and was a bit confusing.

Insight is appreciated, as always, whether good or not so good. Thanks in advance.

Cheers,

Winston

[justACS · Accepted solution]

winston.hensley wrote:

How does the AF Message Maker (AFMM) determine folder heirarchy when creating new messages and is there an easy way to update them after changing the method that's being called?

When using the utility that ships with LV2014, the AFMM seems to generate folders like this:

Main Application ->

                                Alpha Actor ->

                                                      Alpha Actor (method VIs live here)

                                                      Alpha Actor messages ->

                                                                                               Message A Msg

                                                                                               Message B Msg

One of my actor's is misbehaving and generating the messages one level higher than the other Actors in my project, which isn't a huge problem but is a source of frustation and wasted energy when organizing the project, because if I move all the Msg classes to a different folder, the AFMM goes right back to putting new/rebuilt messages into what it 'thinks' is the right place to save.

(The Misbehaving Actor

Main Application ->

                              Alpha Actor (method VIs live here)

                              Alpha Actor messages ->

                                                                      Message A Msg

                                                                      Message B Msg

The class path for your new message class is calculated from the path to the actor itself.  The new path will be ..\<folder containing the Actor folder>\<Actor> Messages\<Message>.  Both of your examples illustrate correct behavior.  The driving difference is the location of Alpha Actor.

[justACS]

winston.hensley wrote:

Also, because I don't see an easy way to add input terminals, I've found myself Removing from Project, deleting from disk and re-building the message using the AFMM.

Yep.  That was the third most common pain point that we identified.  In 2014, that's pretty much what you have to do.  We added a feature in 2015 that will rescript messages for you if something changes in the target method.

I downloaded a utility from the VIPM for interfacting with the AF and it seemed to have a right-click solution for updating the messages, but it created an entirely new directory structure, a whole new message library. This added the duplicate library/filename to the project and was a bit confusing.

Which utility was this?  I released an early version of the new project provider to the community some time ago, but I don't recall rescripting being part of that package.

[winston.hensley]

Thanks for the reply. It is unfortunate that is the only way to rebuild the message class. I must have downloaded an earlier version of the project provider. I included a screenshot that you may be able to recognize.

Has anyone used the MGI Actor Framework Message Maker? It claims to be able to update messages that are already built.

Winston