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New Package (System) Auto-Dependency


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A "System" package is an under-the hood feature in VIPM that is used to support installing files outside of LabVIEW. In fact, you can sort of think of the "?.?" LabVIEW version (in the drop-down list of the VIPM Main UI) as the "System" destination.

 

When you build a package that includes files to be installed outside of the LabVIEW root folder, VIPM creates two packages: one for the files installed under LabVIEW and one for the files installed outside of LabVIEW. And, The LabVIEW Package has a dependency on the System Package.

 

If a System Package is installed, it will show as installed in every LabVIEW version (when you switch LabVIEW versions in the VIPM Main package list UI). This is critical, because you don't want to install a System Package more than once (in different LabVIEW versions). It's OK to install LabVIEW Packages into multiple LabVIEW versions (\MyFiles), but it's not OK to install a System Package mutliple times ("C:\MyFolder"), because the files would get overwritten.

 

The end result is that if you build a package that includes VIs that get installed in LabVIEW and a DLL that gets installed into the Windows System folder, VIPM will build a LabVIEW package for the VIs and a system package for the DLL. So, you can have the VIs installed into multiple independent LabVIEW versions, but the DLL will only get installed once into the system folder.

 

One other behind-the-scenes feature is that VIPM includes the system package inside the LabVIEW package (as sort of an internal package). This means that you only have to distribute a single package file to your users/customers.

 

Now, there are a few things we could do to improve the user experience in VIPM to make it more clear what's happening with the System Packages. For the first release of this feature, we simply show the the System package to the user as a first-class package, but we've considered the possibility of hiding these or perhaps showing them as more closely related/coupled to their LabVIEW package counterparts.

 

-Jim

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