How to get a copy of the Labview manual

[*3d0g]

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@altenbach wrote:

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@lagelian wrote:

We have prioritized fixing the PDF failure bug. The LabVIEW help is by far our largest manual with 96K+ individual topics so it has been a challenge for PDF generation.

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One would think that you could generate that "manual" once offline and then maybe repeat every months or so (or whenever significant changes happen) and cache it for quick downloading. I am not sure how 96k+ entries translates into megabytes. How big would the resulting pdf be?

Another option would be to just remove that menu entry. It does not seem reasonable to even offer that. 😄 (Unless somebody plans to read it while doing a month-long survival training in the Alaskan wilderness, the online resources seem sufficient.)

The time of printed manuals are over!

In contrast, 25+ years ago LabVIEW shipped with a bookshelf worth of manuals. 😄

 

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I'm thinking I'm supposed to delete all but the needed part, but...

"The time of printed manuals are over!"

And that's why OEMs can get away with changing things midstream, because they are never able to be shown black and white text from a manual of their authorship.  Websites are transient -- what it said yesterday isn't necessarily the same as is being said today, and tomorrow it may not even be there.  Web pages are transient, or so it may appear.  A downloaded and then printed document is not.  Having a manual in ones hand is valuable.  Having the manual at hand, without need for any transient electronic permission, is very valuable.  However, I am curious to hear your disagreement(s).

Obviously I am in favor of hardcopy on a shelf.

[altenbach]

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@*3d0g wrote:
And that's why OEMs can get away with changing things midstream, because they are never able to be shown black and white text from a manual of their authorship.  Websites are transient -- what it said yesterday isn't necessarily the same as is being said today, and tomorrow it may not even be there.  Web pages are transient, or so it may appear.  A downloaded and then printed document is not.  Having a manual in ones hand is valuable.  Having the manual at hand, without need for any transient electronic permission, is very valuable.  However, I am curious to hear your disagreement(s).

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You are missing the point that most device features are now also transient. For example your computer, smart home devices, network router, etc.  get regular software/firmware updates, changing functionality and even adding new features. So your printed manual that came with the device 6 moths ago could be completely stale or even wrong.

When's the last time you looked at a printed manual for MS Windows? 😄

I wonder what percentage of this 1200(!!!) page "manual" still applies to Windows 11. 😮

For example there are 11 pages on using "internet email" and not a single mention of "phishing"!

(I remember installing the beta version of windows 95 using about 13 floppies! My arm is still sore from that!)

[MKBNIS]

Hello all, I am trying to download the Programming Reference Manual, and have been utterly unsuccessful with that effort.  I went through the process as described with a new high performance laptop and a fiber optic ethernet connection, so download speed is no issue.  I started the process (while logged in to my NI account) and let it run overnight, and it was still running this AM.  And this is using Microsoft Edge.  I had no success with Chrome either.  And I contacted NI directly, no response.

I do a lot of my programming remotely and like having documentation on my iPad, which is the reason for PDF downloads.  It sure would be nice to have the elusive Programming Reference manual in PDF...  😞  If someone could direct me to a copy I'd sure appreciate it.  Thanks.

[softball]

Hi

I sympathize with your idea, but the reality is that NI does not publish such a document.

That last proper PDF documents from NI are from 2007 where NI included an Adobe Bookshelf based set of PDF document with LabVIEW 8.5. It wasn't that great though. Mostly because of Adobe's lousy software :

The last classic LabVIEW User Manual is from 2003. It is pretty good, but outdated.

NI's current approach is web pages.

If you try to download a PDF version of the online NI 'manual' you end up with 11000+ pages of unstructured rubbish. Sometimes the document includes an index to the rubbish, sometimes it don't. It doesn't matter, as the document is awful to read. I can't.

So what to do. One can hope for a better web experience. Maybe in 5 years ? The problem is that the NI web content is hopelessly poor indexed and organized. NI should look at Microsoft Learn. They are much better at that.

OR you could just buy a book. Google for a preview experience of the candidates.

Regards

[MKBNIS]

Thanks for the info, much appreciated.  It confirms what I needed to know, which is whether I'm wasting my time or not with the download.  NI should make sure that any documentation they offer on the web site is actually obtainable (in that the entire manual is apparently available, but it really isn't, at least in a usable downloadable format).

I'll search for other books to include with the ones I have so far.  I'm hoping that an up to date book is available, all the ones I have are at least 5 years old.  Thanks!

[Bob_Schor]

When I was introduced to LabVIEW, and knew that I had to learn it pretty quickly, I was fortunate to have some students around who knew "how the keyboard worked" (and taught me about using Ctrl-E to switch between Front Panel and Block Diagram, and how holding down Shift while using the Arrow keys makes the cursor move 8x faster).

I bought two books (which are still in print, and still quite good).  One was "LabVIEW for Everyone", Third Edition, by Jeffrey Travis and Jim Kring.  Even though it is "Now Completely Updated for LabVIEW 8!", it may still be one of the better "getting started" books and certainly the closest to a LabVIEW Manual (circa 2008) that you can carry around with you and learn enough to generally get you started in LabVIEW.

Then there's "The LabVIEW Style Book", by Peter Blume.  This does not teach you LabVIEW, it teaches you LabVIEW Style, or "how to write better, cleaner, easier to understand 3 months after you wrote it".  It, too, has served me well.

Bob Schor

[softball]

Hi again

I like to read about stuff too.

But looking back at how best to understand LabVIEW after using it for about 30 years, then the best advice I can give is - load and understand the Examples ( press Help when needed ).

The developers of LabVIEW are/were not poets. They expressed themselves through visual code ..

Regards

[MKBNIS]

Thanks, I have Labview For Everyone 3rd Ed on my desk and it is my go-to for most LabView issues.  I'd recommend it as well, from the aspect of an engineer that has only used LabView for maybe two months.  I don't have time for tutorial classes, am learning the ropes the hard way on actual projects internal to our manufacturing facility.  It has not been a bed of roses, but I already have projects that are making some of the techs heads spin.  LabView is awesome!

I was hoping to get the NI Programming Manual mainly for some of the new VIs like the Report toolkit, not in Labview For Everyone, but LFE is very good for most nuts and bolts stuff.

[Bob_Schor]

Ah.  If you want an Up-to-Date book, LabVIEW Graphical Programming, 5th Edition by Richard Jennings and Fabiola de la Cueva.

Bob Schor