@cs/mva-framework

MVAFramework

What is the MVA Framework?

The MVA Framework is a separation of concerns framework (Model-View-ViewModel) that extends NI's Actor Framework shipping with LabVIEW. There is nothing domain or application-specific about this framework; it's just a way to separate business logic from presentation logic (models from views).

For a quick description of MVVM, see https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/dphill/2009/01/31/the-viewmodel-pattern/

Important Features:

s

  • Mediated data bus with implicit type safety (Subscribers request data by type)
  • Viewable class that provides nesting, launching, and event handling semantics
  • API for publish and subscribe to transport data with low coupling between models and views
  • Transport abstraction supports many subscription types and non-AF-actors (i.e. actors that are not built on the LabVIEW Actor Framework)
  • Policy-based subscriptions and publications to abstract behaviors of publishers and subscribers ("I want 'x' data of type DBL with these conditions...")
  • Publication locks for exclusive publication
  • Verbose framework event logging via "ENABLE_FRAMEWORK_LOG" conditional flag when all other hope is lost.

How do I get set up?

Framework

Examples

  • The best example is currently available as an add-on G Package. Search GPM for "@cs/carwash".
  • Some older getting started examples are just waiting in their old bitbucket repo to be ported to GPM. (So bug me about it if you care)

Dependencies

We have had trouble recently with the LabVIEW linker getting tied up with the relative path change that occurs when installing multi-level package dependencies. We (and others) are working on solutions to this problem. In the meantime, if you install the framework and it is broken, try running gpm relink or gpm recompile on your project directory from a command window. (relink operates only on the gpm_packages folder, recompile operates on your whole project in a more intelligent way than a mass compile.)

Dependencies that will be automatically installed by GPM:

  • @cs/actor-framework-messages (used to implement framework messages)
  • @cs/event-logger (for framework debug event logging)
  • @cs/listbox (used by mediator bus monitor UI)
  • @cs/lookup-table (used multiple places)
  • @cs/transport (data transport abstraction used in mediation)
  • @cs/variant (used in mediation to format unique and human-readable data types)

Contribution guidelines

  • Please report issues, bugs, and suggestions using the linked issue tracker.
  • Please contact the author if you want to contribute.

Who do I talk to?

  • Ethan Stern | Composed Systems, LLC
  • ethan.stern@composed.io

Changelog

All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.

The format is based on Keep a Changelog, and this project adheres to Semantic Versioning.

[Unreleased]

Added

Changed

Deprecated

Removed

Fixed

Security

[3.0.0-alpha.0] - 2020-06-29

* MAJOR UPDATE PRE-RELEASE *

Changed

  • Refactored framework to depend on dependency-inverted mva-core and mva-viewable packages. (mva-framework extends with concrete ViewManagers, concrete ListboxBusMonitor, IDialogBox, and dialog box implementations.)
  • MonitoredMediator decorates Mediator to allow monitoring. Use MonitoredMediator and inject a concrete bus monitor (e.g. ListboxBusMonitor) to monitor the data bus.
  • No public message API for showing bus monitor. (i.e. It is no longer the ViewModel's job to manage this.) Bus monitor constructor binds to published datum. ('Construct Listbox Bus Monitor.vi' establishes the binding.)
  • Viewable actors do not limit to launching one dialog box at a time (it is now the developer's option to enforce this rule if/when desired).

Added

  • Multiple bus monitors may be injected at application launch. (e.g. one that monitors data values and another that tracks publishers and subscriber counts.)
  • Bus monitors may now track number of subscribers to data (implementation in ListboxBusMonitor does not yet exist).

[2.2.3] - 2019-09-12

Fixed

  • Updated Transport dependency to fix returning unnecessary error when Observers request formatted strings with no format specifier

[2.2.2] - 2019-09-09

Fixed

  • Incorrect Transport version dependency (should be 0.0.3)

[2.2.1] - 2019-09-09

Fixed

  • Broken ancestry for all Notification Msg descendants (temporary deprecated ancestor to be removed in major version 3)

[2.2.0] - 2019-09-06 - DO NOT USE THIS RELEASE (see 2.2.1)

Changed

  • Default framework log state is no logging. Minor log format cleanup. To enable framework log, set ENABLE_FRAMEWORK_LOG conditional flag = True

Fixed

  • Community scoping issue (I somehow messed this up again in the last release)

Deprecated

  • Old-fashioned polymorphic Request Synchronous Data API (replace calls with malleable method)

Added

  • Malleable Request Synchronous Data compatible with all types

[2.1.3] - 2019-08-02

Fixed

  • Incorrect default value of IViewable:Bind Terminal Enabled State (label and value now match Disabled and Grayed Out)
  • Community scoping issue that broke deployments after LV2017 (added friend relationship)

[2.1.2] - 2019-05-10

(2.1.1 was an errant publication with an inaccurate Changelog version and date. Source is identical)

Changed

  • Minor in-placeness optimization to MediatorBusMonitor

Removed

  • Deprecated (and disabled) Observe Data method from concrete MediatorBusMonitor

Fixed

  • Stale dependency links in obsolete code and unit tests

[2.1.0] - 2019-05-02

Changed

  • Framework logging now uses explicit log reference (now local, was global)

Added

  • Set Minimum Panel Size message to IViewable
  • In-placeness optimization of subscription policy

[2.0.0] - 2019-03-21

Added

  • Debug logging (new dependency on @cs/event-logger)
  • Project flag to conditionally remove all logging (REMOVE_DEBUG_LOGGING)

Changed

  • Moved location of applicaiton template on disk so it installs with G Package

Removed

  • Deprecated framework accessors
  • ApplicationStyle injection (removed from framework API)

[1.9.1] - 2019-02-14

Version Note

All prior GPM versions are incomplete, badly linked, or missing dependencies

Changed

  • Replaced CurrentValueTable dependency (VIP) with malleable LookupTable (G Package)
  • Moved all remaining tests out of Source folder
  • Migrated from VI Package to G Package
  • Relinked dependencies to G Packages

Removed

  • TimedAverageBuffer and its associated SubscriptionPolicy (which no one used)
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