VIPM 2010 has entered beta testing…

and we need your help!

VIPM 2010 has lots of cool improvements like major performance boosts, better configuration management tools, and support for 64-bit LabVIEW.  But more importantly, it sports a completely redesigned Package Builder that lets you package any type of LabVIEW Add-on you can think of.

Can you prove us wrong?  Is there a special kind of package you’ve been unable to build because VIPM (until now) didn’t support what you needed?  Are you an enthusiastic VIPM user and you want to help us improve the product before we ship it?

If any of those apply to you, please go here and sign up for the VIPM 2010 Beta Program.

We’re looking forward to hearing your feedback!

What’s New in EasyXML 2.0?

EasyXML 2.0 includes major performance improvements when parsing XML.  It also fixes several bugs.  See the EasyXML 2.0 Release Notes for full details.

Download EasyXML

You can download & install the demo version of EasyXML using VI Package Manager.  Just press the “Check the Network for Available Packages” button to refresh your package list, and then install the jki_lib_easyxml-2.0-1 package.  The demo version of EasyXML is fully functional, but periodically displays a reminder dialog urging you to upgrade to the paid version.

Purchase EasyXML

If you try EasyXML and like it, you can purchase the full version of EasyXML in our store.

Special Discount for Existing EasyXML Customers

JKI is pleased to offer a free upgrade to EasyXML 2.0 for any customers who purchased EasyXML on or after January 1, 2010.  We also offer a 35% discount on EasyXML 2.0 to all other previous EasyXML customers.  If you are an existing EasyXML customer, you should be receiving an email with instructions on how to redeem these discounts.  If you don’t, please send an email to customer-service@jkisoft.com with your original Order # or the email address you used to place the order, and let us know!

Bug photo courtesy of spakattacks.

If you follow me on Twitter or are my Facebook friend, you would’ve known right away about the LabVIEW-, LEGO Mindstorms-, and Twitter-powered popcorn-popping contraption a friend and I built recently.  We built it to enter a contest, where the object was to make a video showing the “most inventive way to pop this all-American snack.”

Our first idea was a winner:  Crowd-sourced Popcorn.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HsE6tkWCzM

Since we uploaded it last week, the video has gone viral.  It was picked up first by Engadget, but things got really big when it hit Mashable.  Even now, there’s a steady stream of #popcorn tweets on Twitter, as people send the link around and around to their friends.  Most importantly, we won the contest.

What does this have to do with JKI?

If you watch the video, you can clearly see that the famous JKI State Machine plays a starring role.  I got to thinking, though, that the JKI State Machine is by no means the only important piece of the puzzle.  I used a whole bunch of JKI products!

• I used the JKI State Machine as a template for the whole application.
• I used JKI’s VI Package Manager to install the required OpenG libraries and EasyXML.
• I used JKI’s EasyXML to parse the results returned from the Twitter Search API.
• I used the JKI TortoiseSVN Tool for LabVIEW to easily sync the code to my Subversion server.

We didn’t spend a lot of time designing and building the Popcorn Tweets system.  After all, I have a real job at JKI.  But luckily, I live in a world where NI makes great products like LabVIEW, and where NI partners like JKI can extend the platform and provide great tools to help people turn any idea into reality!

Want More Technical Info?

I’ve posted a technical overview of the system on NI’s LabVIEW DIY Crew group.  Check it out!

Having the world’s largest VI Package repository means that we can identify scaling problems before they start to affect our customers.  That’s why we identified some key bottlenecks when using VIPM to manage large repositories, and fixed them in VIPM 3.0.  The result is that VIPM 3.0 is faster than VIPM 2.0, especially when dealing with large numbers of packages.  Here are a few of the benefits you’ll see as a VIPM user:

Faster initial setup time for new VIPM users

In VIPM 2.0, you might have noticed that it could take several minutes for VIPM to download information from the VI Package Network about all the packages available.  Now, in VIPM 3.0, we’ve implemented lazy downloading of package information (see the lazy acquisition design pattern [PDF] for more info), which means that VIPM downloads only the information it needs, right when it needs it.

Faster “Check Network for Package Updates”

Another effect of the lazy downloading of packages (described above) is a faster check for package updates.

Faster Installation and use of VI Packages and VI Package Configurations

We’ve optimized the zipping and unzipping of VI Packages and VI Package Configurations.  We found some areas where we were using high-level OpenG Zip Tools functions, but there were more optimal ways to use some of the lower-level functions.  This means that saving and loading of VI Packages & VI Package Configurations is now a lot faster.  You’ll notice a big difference especially when working with large VIPC files.

Faster Package Search and Column Sorting

We noticed that when there were a lot of packages in VIPM’s package list, the search and column sorting got a little slow.  So, we took a close look and found some ways to optimize this.  This wasn’t rocket science; VIPM mostly just caches certain data now, rather than recalculating it every time the search/sort operation is performed.  The result is that searching your package list for the package you want will be more responsive with larger numbers of packages in your library.

We hope you find VIPM 3.0’s performance to be better than ever.  If you haven’t downloaded it already, what are you waiting for?  Get it now!

And, stay tuned for more articles about “What’s new in VIPM 3.0?“

One of the most important new features in VIPM 3.0 is the ability to create and manage your own VI Package Repository using VIPM Enterprise.  Now you can find, download, and install VI Packages of your team’s reusable code from a VI Package Repository located on your corporate network or the Internet.  Your developers will be able to install and use your VI Packages just as easily as they install and use packages from OpenG or JKI Software!

How Does It Work?

Sharing VI Packages with VIPM Enterprise is easy.  VIPM provides a Repository Manager window that lets you create a VI Package Repository on any standard file or web server.  Using the Repository Manager window, you can see what’s in your repository, add or remove packages from the repository, and manage users’ access to the repository.  To publish a package, just drag & drop a package file from Windows Explorer into the Repository Manager window.

Once the VI Package has been published to your VI Package Repository, VIPM users on your team will get a message from VIPM, telling them that the new package is available for download and installation into LabVIEW.

VIPM is so “Web 2.0″

As an added bonus, VIPM allows you to publish an RSS feed of your package releases, so your team can also receive notifications of package releases in any RSS reader (Outlook, Google Reader, Thunderbird, etc.).  Now go tweet your coworkers, telling them that your LabVIEW code reuse system is Web 2.0 compatible!

But that’s not all!  VIPM 3.0 includes other cool features, like:

• User Management — VIPM lets you control which users are authorized to access your VI Package Repository.
• VI Package Deprecation — VIPM lets you hide outdated packages from your users to discourage their use.
• VI Package Validation — VIPM calculates a cryptographic hash for every package, which allows users to verify that they have the official released version of a package for traceability purposes.
• much more…

I’ll be going over these features (and other VIPM 3.0 features) in future articles, so stay tuned.

If you haven’t downloaded VIPM 3.0 already, what are you waiting for?  Get it now!

VI Package Manager™ allows you to get your reusable LabVIEW VIs into the palettes, organized the way you want, in just minutes. It has powerful, easy-to-use features that make sure you’re always in control of your reusable VIs, without the worry of missing subVIs in your LabVIEW projects.  And, it allows you to share your reusable VIs with your entire team, over the network.

Want to hear what others are saying about VI Package Manager? See our Customer Quotes.

VIPM Community

• Install VI Packages
• Download free OpenG VIs
• Keyword search for VIs

VIPM Professional - In addition to all the features available in VIPM Community, VIPM Professional offers the following additional features:

• Create VI Packages
• Configuration Management of Projects
• Source Code Control  Integration

VIPM Enterprise – In addition to all the features available in VIPM Professional, VIPM Enterprise offers the following additional features:

• Network Package Sharing
• Team-based code reuse
• User Management

You can learn more about VIPM 3.0, as well as download it on the Web at: jkisoft.com/vipm

We’re very proud of this release and hope you find that it’s full of great new features that help you in your LabVIEW projects. Thank you for all your feedback and support.

The engineers at Endevo have put together a great video that shows how to use their UML Modeller with the JKI State Machine:

Click here to watch it.

And don’t forget, the JKI State Machine is a free tool from JKI Software.  You can always learn more about it at jkisoft.com, or install it in just a few clicks using VI Package Manager™.

To download and install the demo version, purchase the toolkit, or for more information please visit http://jkisoft.com/tortoisesvn-tool/