We are pleased to announce that we are releasing Kiplingv3.1 featuring:
- Improved start time and splash screen
- Improved Device Selector
- Improved Module Navigation
- MUCH better error handling and reporting
- Improved register matrix that now remembers the registers you have selected.
- Improved lua script editing that remembers what script you last had open.
- New project repository
Splash Screen
Kipling now starts a lot faster and has a responsive splash screen!
Improved Device Selector
It is now easier and faster to open multiple devices. You don't have to wait for a device to finish being opened to be able to open a second device.
Improved Module Sidebar
It is now easier to transition from selecting devices to controlling devices. After selecting a device modules show up instantly.
Improved Error Handling
Kipling handles and displays device errors by displaying them in the upper right corner of the screen making them much easier and less intrusive.
More Error Handling
Because of error-handling improvements devices can be disconnected and reconnected with out locking up/freezing the program! Yay! This is great news to our WiFi customers that have connectivity issues.
Register Matrix Improvements
The register matrix is an important module because it pretty much exposes all of the device's features. It is now easier to search for registers, add/remove them, and edit them. When editing registers that report an IP address the 32bit integer gets automatically converted into an IP address string! More importantly, you can navigate away from the register matrix and when you come back your selected registers will still be there.
Lua Scripting
Developing lua scripts for the T7/T7-Pro is much easier than before. There updated examples, the editor & console stay "fit" to your screen size, and thanks to the error-handling improvements as well as T7 firmware improvements lua script errors that once plagued kipling are no longer there.
New Kipling Project Repository
One of the biggest changes to the project has been the code-base itself. We re-designed it from being a huge monolithic project and split it up into multiple smaller repositories and have published multiple parts of it to npm. We also transitioned to a two-process architecture due to some issues that we were running into with the node-ffi library and node-webkit/nwjs. The project is now MUCH easier to make contributions to and develop for if the community is interested in helping out with the project. The project has been re-based to the ljswitchboard-project_manager repository. All of the building and developing tools are available through that repository.
If anyone wants to develop a module for Kipling or has interest in learning more please let us know. We are happy to make additional documentation for the program's internals if there is interest and have made a GitHub issue for adding documentation where you can express your interest.
Installing Kiplingv3.1
For our windows users we released a new version of our main installer that now includes Kipling. For our Mac OS X and Linux users the files are currently available through GitHub and the Kipling Version 3.1.0 release tag. We are in the process of bundling Kipling into our Mac OS X and Linux installers and will likely be able to post those when we go live with our new website.
Things that broke
First of all, we are sorry for any inconveniences that these bugs cause you and we are trying to get them fixed.
- The device updater module in Kipling 3.1 and 3.0.x broke with the new website release. Firmware files must manually downloaded at the T7 Firmware page.
- Windows XP support is dropped in Kipling version 3.1.0 and higher. Customers who use windows XP should use older versions of Kipling. More information about this can be found on the Kipling LabJack applications page.