Measurement Studio 8.5 for Visual Studio 2005 Readme

Measurement Studio is an integrated suite of tools and class libraries that are designed for developers using .NET, ASP.NET, and MFC to develop measurement and automation applications.

Measurement Studio 8.5 includes separate, parallel sets of class libraries, integration features, and support documentation for developing with Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008. Installing Measurement Studio support for Visual Studio 2008 does not directly impact installations of Measurement Studio Visual Studio 2005 support or projects or programs that use Measurement Studio Visual Studio 2005 support class libraries. This does not apply to underlying drivers or other software components, such as NI-DAQmx, that allow only one version to be installed on the system at a time.

Measurement Studio 8.5 includes support for Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, Microsoft Visual C#, and Microsoft Visual C++ in Visual Studio .NET 2003, Visual Studio 2005, and Visual Studio 2008. Measurement Studio 8.5 also includes support for Visual Basic 6.0 and Visual C++ in Visual Studio 6.0. Measurement Studio support for Visual Studio .NET 2003, Visual Studio 2005,and Visual Studio 2008 is on one CD. Measurement Studio support for Visual Studio 6.0 is on another CD.

This readme documents only Measurement Studio support for Visual Studio 2005. Measurement Studio support for other versions of Visual Studio includes separate readme files.

This file contains the following sections:

What's New in Measurement Studio 8.5

This section describes new features that have been introduced in Measurement Studio since version 8.1.2.

AutoRefresh Callback Improvements

This new feature provides a mechanism for updating the Enabled and Interval properties for AutoRefresh from within the Refresh callback, allowing you to turn off AutoRefresh or change the Interval during an asynchronous HTTP request without causing a postback. Previously, the JavaScript timer on the client did not get updated during an asynchronous HTTP request, and only the controls in the AutoRefresh collection were updated.

Explicitly Creating Network Variables

In addition to explicitly creating network variables with the Variable Manager, now you also can explicitly create network variables with the following classes: ServerProcess, ServerProcessInfo, ServerVariable, and ServerVariableInfo. You can use ServerProcess to perform a process-related operation; ServerProcessInfo and ServerVariableInfo to periodically monitor a network variable process or variable, respectively; and ServerVariable to perform a single variable-related operation.

For more information on using these classes to explicitly create and configure network variables, refer to Explicitly Creating Network Variables in the NI Measurement Studio Help.

Browsing Network Variables

The network variable API includes the Browser class and the network variable configuration classes, ServerProcess, ServerProcessInfo, ServerVariable, and ServerVariableInfo. You can use these classes to discover network variables and processes.

You can use the Browser class for the following tasks:

You can use the ServerProcess, ServerProcessInfo, ServerVariable, and ServerVariableInfo classes for the following browse tasks:

For more information on browsing network variables, refer to Comparing the Network Variable Browser Class and the Configuration Classes in the NI Measurement Studio Help.

Network Variable Buffer Flushing

Measurement Studio 8.5 gives you advanced control over when the network variable API flushes its buffers, allowing you to optimize the performance of the API for your particular application.

All NetworkVariable readers and writers maintain an internal buffer for each connection. All writer classes maintain an internal buffer to protect against data loss. The buffer automatically flushes every 10 milliseconds or when the buffer becomes full, and you can use the FlushAllConnections method to manually flush the buffer. All network variable reader classes, NetworkVariableBufferedSubscriber<TValue>, NetworkVariableReader<TValue>, and NetworkVariableSubscriber<TValue> must flush the buffer in order to perform a read, since the readers must send a request to receive the value to the network variable engine.

For more information on buffer flushing behavior and how to maximize performance in context of the buffer, refer to Buffer Flushing Behavior of the Network Variable Class Libraries in the NI Measurement Studio Help.

Memory-Optimized Analog Waveform Read Methods

Memory-optimized analog waveform reads are a special case of analog waveform reads in the NI-DAQmx and NI-SCOPE .NET class libraries where the AnalogWaveform<TData> class re-uses the memory utilized by an existing AnalogWaveform<TData> instead of allocating memory for a new data array on every invocation. Memory is reallocated if the number of samples requested is greater than or equal to the current size of the AnalogWaveform<TData>. This allows for much more efficient memory usage when performing multiple analog waveform reads. Memory-optimized analog waveform read methods were introduced in NI-DAQ 8.7 and NI-SCOPE .NET class libraries 1.1.

Visualization Support for ComplexWaveform in the WaveformGraph

You can use PlotComplexWaveform<TData> to plot complex waveforms on the Windows Forms and Web Forms waveform graphs. You can use the DisplayMode property to specify whether the complex waveform displays samples or increments of time, and you can use the ScaleMode property to configure whether the data is displayed in raw form or scaled. You can also customize the scaling behavior by deriving from ScaleMode. You can also use the DataToPlot property to configure the waveform graph to plot the real, imaginary, magnitude, or phase data.

.NET Analysis Library Code Snippets

Measurement Studio 8.5 includes analysis code snippets in the documentation that can be copied and pasted into an application and used without modification. The following classes include new example code snippets:

For more information, refer to Using the Measurement Studio Analysis .NET Library in the NI Measurement Studio Help.

Additional New Features

The following new features were also introduced in Measurement Studio 8.5:

The following methods have been added:

Installing Measurement Studio 8.5

The following sections list the system requirements for Measurement Studio 8.5 and instructions on how to install Measurement Studio 8.5.

Note    Review the installer known issues before you install Measurement Studio 8.5.

Installation Requirements

To use Measurement Studio, your computer must have the following:

Optional Installation—In order for links from Measurement Studio help topics to .NET Framework help topics to work, you must install the Microsoft .NET Framework SDK 2.0.

Note   If you are going to upgrade an existing Windows 2000 or XP machine to Windows Vista, National Instruments recommends you uninstall all National Instruments software, including both application software and drivers, prior to the upgrade and re-install the software after the upgrade.

Deployment Requirements

To deploy an application built with Measurement Studio .NET class libraries, the target computer must have a Windows Vista/XP/2000 operating system and .NET Framework 2.0.

To deploy an application built with Measurement Studio Visual C++ class libraries, the target computer must have a Windows Vista/XP/2000 operating system.

Installation Instructions

Complete the following steps to install Measurement Studio. These steps describe a typical installation. Please carefully review all additional licensing and warning dialog boxes.

National Instruments recommends that you exit all programs before running the Measurement Studio installer. Applications that run in the background, such as virus scanning utilities, might cause the installer to take longer than average to complete.

The option to browse for an installation location is valid only if you have not already installed any Measurement Studio features for the version of Visual Studio or the .NET Framework that you are installing. If you have any Measurement Studio features installed, then Measurement Studio installs to the same root directory to which you installed other Measurement Studio features.

Complete the following steps to install Measurement Studio:

  1. Log on as an administrator or as a user with administrator privileges.
  2. Launch Autorun.exe, either from the installation CD or from the location to which you extracted the downloaded CD image.
  3. Click on Visual Studio 2005 to install Measurement Studio support for Visual Studio 2005.
  4. Follow the instructions that appear on the screen.

Installing Hardware Drivers for Visual Studio 2005 Support

The .NET and C++ class libraries for Visual Studio 2005 support for National Instruments hardware drivers are included in the Driver CD installer, available from ni.com.

Installing the Current Version of Measurement Studio over Previous Versions of Measurement Studio

You can have only one version of Measurement Studio installed on a system for each version of Visual Studio or the .NET Framework installed on the system. For example, you can have Measurement Studio 8.1.2 for Visual Studio 2005 installed on the same system as Measurement Studio 8.5 for Visual Studio 2008, but you cannot have Measurement Studio 8.1.2 for Visual Studio 2005 installed on the same system as Measurement Studio 8.5 for Visual Studio 2005.

If you install a newer version of Measurement Studio on a machine that has a prior version of Measurement Studio installed, the newer version installer replaces the prior version functionality, including class libraries. However, the prior version assemblies remain in the global assembly cache (GAC); therefore, applications that reference the prior version continue to use the prior version .NET assemblies.

Note    This does not apply to NationalInstruments.Common.dll. NationalInstruments.Common.dll uses a publisher policy file to redirect applications to always use the newest version of NationalInstruments.Common.dll installed on the system, for each version of the .NET Framework. NationalInstruments.Common.dll is backward-compatible.

Getting Started with Measurement Studio 8.5

For assistance in getting started with Measurement Studio 8.5, refer to the Measurement Studio Overview and the Getting Started with the Measurement Studio Class Libraries topics in the NI Measurement Studio Help or refer to the Measurement Studio User Manual and the Measurement Studio Release Notes. You can launch the NI Measurement Studio Help in the following ways:

To view the Measurement Studio User Manual and the Measurement Studio Release Notes, select Start»All Programs»National Instruments»<Measurement Studio>Measurement Studio User Manual or Start»All Programs»National Instruments»<Measurement Studio>Measurement Studio Release Notes. To view these documents, you need the free Adobe Reader. Refer to the Adobe Systems Incorporated Web site at www.adobe.com to download Adobe Reader.

To get started creating a Measurement Studio project using class library and application templates, open Visual Studio and select File»New»Project to launch the New Project dialog box. In the Project Types pane, select the folder for the language you want to create the program in, and then select Measurement Studio. In the Templates pane, you can then select which type of project you want to create.

For step-by-step guides in learning how to develop applications with Measurement Studio, refer to the Measurement Studio Walkthroughs section of the NI Measurement Studio Help.

Deploying Applications Built with Measurement Studio 8.5

For information about deploying applications built with Measurement Studio 8.5, refer to Deploying Measurement Studio Applications in the NI Measurement Studio Help.

Note    Measurement Studio support for Visual Studio 2005 does not support deploying applications to Windows 95/98/Me/NT 4.0.

Bug Fixes in Measurement Studio 8.5

The following items are bugs fixed in Measurement Studio 8.5.

Component Bug ID Fixed Issue
.NET Class Libraries 31054 Fixed an issue where the Visual Studio environment reported registry errors from Measurement Studio integration when only IVI (without the IVI Compliance Package) was installed.
31067 Fixed an issue where pressing F1 on a property of a generic datatype does not take you to the property page.
31109 Fixed an issue where the New Item Wizard, shown by clicking Add»User Control or other Add menu items, selects the NI Instrument Driver template by default.
31112 Fixed an issue where the DaqComponent did not handle task names with spaces correctly.
31179 Improved performance of changing XYPointAnnotation visibility.
31273 Fixed an issue where some of the values on the scale were cut off when a tank or a slider was dropped on the form and docked.
31278 Fixed an issue where automatically formatting a user interface control at design-time using the "Auto Format..." option resets certain property values.
31446 Fixed an issue where zooming in the DigitalWaveformGraph in samples mode shows fractional values in the axis labels.
31449 Improved performance of constructing large PrecisionTimeSpan values.
31450 Fixed an issue where the NumericEdit control does not commit a new value when entering a value and then pressing Enter quickly afterwards.
31452 Fixed an issue where PropertyEditor displays values in incorrect format.
33604 Fixed an issue where a .NET application freezes when zooming multiple times with a waveform graph with minor division grid lines visible.
33626 Fixed an issue where LogosXT is slow compared to Logos when using network variables in Measurement Studio.
33645 Fixed an issue where waveform timing information is incorrect after being transferred using network variable.
33880 Fixed an issue where changing the label format of the x-axis two times on a DigitalWaveformGraph through the smart tag does not serialize correctly in the Designer.
100063 Fixed an issue where changing Regional and Language settings while using an XY scatter graph in ASP.NET causes the application to crash. Similar fixes were applied to Internationalization support in the Measurement Studio .NET class libraries.
C++ Class Libraries 30443 Fixed an issue where the CWNumEdit control does not highlight text when tabbing through the form elements for the first time.
31028 Fixed an issue where a 3D graph on a dimmed panel is visible through the panel in front of it.
31029 Fixed an issue where using CWGraph3D on a .NET MDI form causes an AccessViolationException.
31111 Fixed an issue where the C++ task code generation does not handle task names with spaces correctly.
31272 Fixed an issue where the annotations in a CWGraph control were not clipped outside the bounds of the control when an image of the control was saved to a file.
31429 Fixed an issue in the CWGraph3D control where manually scaling the axis and using a log scale does not display correctly.
31430 Fixed an issue in the CWGraph3D control where the grid lines did not print smoothly even when the Smooth Grid Lines property was enabled.
34161 Fixed an issue where the FillStyle property for CWKnob and CWDial does not update when changed from Fill to Minimum to None.
34232 Fixed an issue where a CWSlide control displays the z-order of overlapping fills in reverse.
Note    Refer to the What's New in Measurement Studio topic in the NI Measurement Studio Help for information about bug fixes in previous versions of Measurement Studio.

Known Issues in Measurement Studio

Measurement Studio 8.5 Incompatibilities with Previous Versions of Measurement Studio

For a complete list of incompatibilities in Measurement Studio with previous versions of Measurement Studio and otherwise supported features, including a list of obsoleted members and members that have been changed to sealed override or non-virtual, refer to the Measurement Studio Incompatibilities topic in the NI Measurement Studio Help.

Installer Known Issues

Uninstaller Known Issues

Visual Studio Environment Integration Features Known Issues

.NET Class Libraries Known Issues

Visual C++ Class Libraries Known Issues

Documentation Known Issues

Copyright

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Patents

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