What is New for TestStand 4.0? - KnowledgeBase - Support

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What is New for TestStand 4.0?

Primary Software: TestStand
Primary Software Version: 4.0
Primary Software Fixed Version: N/A
Secondary Software: N/A

Problem:
What is new for TestStand 4.0?

Solution:

The following list describes the new features in TestStand 4.0 and other changes since TestStand 3.5.

Redesigned Sequence Editor

The redesigned sequence editor includes the following enhancements:

Dockable panes and tabbed windows
Configurable window layouts that you can save and reset to the default configuration
Customizable menus and toolbars with configurable keyboard shortcuts
Configurable step list settings and columns
Insertion Palette that makes it easier to insert steps into sequences
Templates list that contains preconfigured steps, sequences, and variable instances, which you can add to sequence files
Multi-step editing
Undo/redo for most sequence file edits; however, edits to types clear the list of undo/redo operations
New Output pane to display generic messages, warnings, and error messages that you generate with the OutputMessage expression function and the OutputMessage.Post method

Creating Custom Sequence Editors Using TestStand User Interface (UI) Controls

The TestStand UI Controls support editing sequence files. You can enable sequence editing by setting the ApplicationMgr.IsEditor property or by using the /editor command-line flag.

The user interface examples now fully support editing sequences. In Operator Mode, the user interfaces behave as in previous versions of TestStand. In Editor Mode, the user interfaces display additional views, menu items, and toolbar buttons, such as the Insertion Palette control and the Variables View control, for editing sequence files. The user interfaces do not support dockable panes, and you must use dialog boxes to configure steps and code modules as in previous versions of TestStand.

TestStand 4.0 renames the <TestStand>\OperatorInterfaces directory to <TestStand>\UserInterfaces to reflect that the example applications can now optionally function as editors. In addition, the LabVIEW full-featured user interface was redesigned to simplify VI block diagrams, allowing you to easily make changes.

TestStand 4.0 includes a new TestStand Custom Sequence Editor License that you can use when using a custom sequence editor application. You can now use this license instead of the TestStand Development System License for a system where you deploy a custom sequence editor application.

Note TestStand applications that use the User Interface Controls to edit and save sequence files must set ApplicationMgr.IsEditor to True before calling ApplicationMgr.Start. If the application uses only the TestStand API, the application should request a custom sequence editor license by calling the Engine.AcquireLicense method after creating the TestStand Engine. If you do not call this method, TestStand automatically acquires the minimum license, the TestStand Base Deployment Engine License, when you call specific Engine methods such as Engine.GetSequenceFile and Engine.NewSequenceFile. If the application later attempts to save a sequence file, TestStand attempts to acquire a license that can save files and can prompt the user to activate the license.

New Sequence File Formats

TestStand 4.0 includes binary and XML sequence file formats in addition to the INI file format. Use the binary file format if you want the fastest load and save times and the smallest files. Use the XML file format if you want your files to be human readable or if you want to parse the files as XML.

You can specify the default format for new files by selecting Configure» Station Options, selecting the Preferences tab, and clicking the File Format Options button. You can also change the format before you save sequence files by selecting Edit»Sequence File Properties, selecting the General tab, and changing the value in the File Format ring control. You can convert between file formats using the Sequence File Converter tool that TestStand launches when you select Tools»Update Sequence Files. You can use the tool interactively, or you can use command-line arguments.

Caution Changing between binary and other formats might require changes to source code control settings, such as changing the file type in the source code control provider to ensure that the provider stores the files properly.

Note In TestStand 3.5, protected sequence files were saved as .INI files, but the file contained binary data. In TestStand 4.0, protected sequence files that use the .INI file format now contain only text data and no longer contain binary data.

Custom Sequence File Translators

You can create custom sequence file translators that TestStand uses to load sequence files with your own custom file formats. You can create translators in various development environments, use versioning schemes with custom files, and deploy translators with TestStand.

A custom sequence file translator allows TestStand to load test description files saved in a custom format, such as text or XML. The translator reads the contents of the custom sequence file, translates the contents to a TestStand sequence file, and opens the TestStand sequence file in the sequence editor or a user interface. Within the sequence editor or user interface, you can perform all typical operations supported in the TestStand sequence files, such as executing and debugging sequences, diffing files, adding custom sequence files to workspaces, and deploying custom sequence files. However, you cannot save changes you make to the TestStand sequence file back to a custom sequence file format. You must make all changes to the custom sequence file directly.

Refer to Chapter 15, Sequence File Translators, in the NI TestStand Reference Manual for more information about custom sequence file translators. Refer to <TestStand>\Examples\SequenceFileTranslators for example custom sequence files and translators.

API Additions

TestStand 4.0 includes new User Interface Controls and new API classes, methods, and properties. Additionally, some API methods and properties are now obsolete.

Note Some components of TestStand, such as the TestStand Sequence Editor, expose .NET assemblies; however, the use of undocumented assembly API is not supported.

Other TestStand Enhancements

TestStand includes the following other enhancements:

You can configure whether function tips show automatically in the Expression controls.
You can configure the font size for text in Expression controls to one of the following settings: normal, large, or extra large.
You can access the TestStand API in expressions without using the ActiveX/COM Adapter. The Expression control type-ahead feature includes support for the TestStand API. You can also specify TestStand API calls using the new TestStand API tab of the Expression Browser dialog box.

Note Although accessing the TestStand API in expressions is easier and simpler than using steps that use the ActiveX/COM Adapter, accessing the TestStand API in expressions is slightly slower than using multiple steps that use the ActiveX/COM Adapter.
Test limits now accept expressions in the Numeric Limit Test and Multiple Numeric Limit Test step types.
TestStand 4.0 includes a stand-alone Sequence File Differ application, located at <TestStand>\Bin\SequenceFileDiffer.exe.
TestStand 4.0 includes a new Workspace Documentation tool that generates HTML or comma-delimited text reports that list the contents of a workspace. Select Tools»Workspace File Documentation to access the tool.
The NI TestStand Help and manuals include updated content. The help files are located in the <TestStand>\Doc\Help directory. The manuals are located in the <TestStand>\Doc\Manuals directory. TestStand no longer includes the TestStand Bookshelf. With Adobe Reader 7.0 or later, you can search in multiple PDFs.

Report Date: 08/30/2007
Last Updated: 09/05/2007
Document ID: 4CTHULXU

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