VI Plugin Framework
No-code meets sophisticated application development (it's unexpectedly powerful)
Overview
No-code application development with intelligent, configurable, communicating plugins
VI Plugin Framework (often referred to simply as VIPF) is a no-code application development framework.
By carving out high-performance plugins for data acquisition, instrument communication, control & monitoring, data visualization, data storage, and more,
VIPF has reduced the burden of complex programming down to flexible, intuitive configuration.
Plugins can be anything from a simple data publisher to a full-blown controller and are configured in a full-featured editor.
Plugins even support a fully intepreted computation language to enable sophisticated, dynamic run-time capabilities.
Oh, and simulation mode is a common feature for all hardware plugins so you can flex your system before ever running against live hardware.
Plugins also communicate with one another: simply declare which plugins should receive data from others and configure how that data should be used.
In essentially all cases, both the sending and receiving plugins allow computations to transform the sent and received data.
Plugins also have built-in logging and centralized error reporting capabilities.
Even custom plugins are easy to build and seamless to integrate.
In the end, we've already written all of the irreducible code so that you don't have to.
Simply add your plugins and configure them to suite your application.
How It Works
Let's see just how easy it is to create applications with VIPF
Step 1: Add Plugins
Here we see the VIPF Manager where we can create and save VIPF applications. Right-click on an empty row to explore and insert any number of plugins. The checkbox in the leftmost column indicates whether the plugin should launch immediately when the application is run. Simply save your application as a *.vipa file anytime to recall and run it later.
Step 2: Configure Plugins
Right-click or double-click on an existing plugin instance (row) to open a configuration editor. Here we can configure the plugin instance's behaviors and abilities. The editor has many features including syntax highlighting, hover documentation, type-ahead completion, zoom, code collapse, auto-formatting, undo/redo, and more. The editor even has checks for valid string values, valid numeric ranges, and syntax errors to help keep your configurations rock-solid.
Step 3: Run Your Application
Choose Application >> Run Application to run your application. Applications run in a VIPF Worker which displays status information for each plugin (leftmost column). Workers also provide run-time control over all plugins in your application. Any plugins configured to open on launch will also show their panels (see step 4 below).
Step 4: Interact With Running Plugins
With your application running, you can now interact with any of your plugins. Those configured to show their panels on launch will already be open. However you can open any others by simply double-clicking (or right-clicking and choosing Show Front Panel; see step 3 above) on the plugin in the VIPF Worker window. And remember, plugins can be as simple as a data acquirer / publisher or as sophisticated as an entire application.
Features
Powerful out-of-the-box capabilities allow composing sophisticated applications quickly
VIPF Manager
Exposes features for creating, managing, and running VIPF applictions.
- Run plugins in parallel vs sequentially
- Update environment preferences
- Install new plugins
- Open rich, built-in documentation
- Enable framework-level logging
VIPF Editor
Captures features for editing and saving plugin instance configurations.
- Configure all plugin parameters & communication
- Syntax highlighting & error checking
- Hover documentation
- Code collapse
- Auto-format
- Undo / Redo
- Zoom
VIPF Worker
Provides features for managing running applications.
- Shut down and launch individual plugins or the entire program
- Open and close plugin interfaces
- View running plugin configuration
- View run-time errors
- Clear run-time errors
Plugin Interfaces
Plugins can be as simple or as sophistocated as necessary.
- Interact with running plugins
- Plugins define their capabilities
- Plugins may be simple or sophisticated
- Plugins run independently but can communicate
- Plugins can be controlled in the VIPF Worker window
VIPF Documentation Viewer
Surfaces complete documentation for VIPF and installed plugins.
- Comprehensive navigation for all documentation
- Framework docs for getting started
- Detailed plugin-specific docs
- Full, filterable plugin parameter descriptions
- Interactive configuration editor showing plugin defaults
- Advanced feature coverage (ex. expression language)
Plugins
Our plugin library makes even complex applications easy and elegant
VI Plugin Framework (VIPF) includes many plugins for graphing, charting, data acquisition, instrument control, and more to help build your next application fast.
Below is a glance at some of the more popular plugin categories, however if you're working with hardware from a major manufacturer there's a good chance we have you covered.
And we build custom plugins all the time, so if you need a custom interface or control plugin we can help with that too.
Reach out for a demonstration today to witness the power firsthand.