One quality of life change that I would love would be options for colour schemes, even if it’s just a single “Dark Mode”. Staring at blinding white screens is not how I like to spend my time! I currently get around this by inverting colours in the Control Panel, but I think that having that flexibility within Venus itself would be awesome 
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@EricSindelar_Hamilton do you have a list of what’s currently planned for development with the new version of Venus? Would be nice to see what’s coming so that developers can plan accordingly (and not make redundant requests/slave away at building something ourselves if it will be available ~6 months from now 
)
I have our internal specifications document, but I think R&D and Product Management would be very upset with me if I shared that! 
What I can say is that we are making a considerable effort and investment in VENUS and the development will be split into multiple release phases. The first phase will focus on modernizing the interface and including formal support for the VANTAGE so we no longer have a separate VoV plugin. The goal is for that release to occur by SLAS 2023 where we will also have a tutorial and provide more insight on the roadmap for our software.
Until then, I wouldn’t hold off on developing new tools as needed for your applications. The software will be backwards compatible so whatever you develop should still be applicable. If there are libraries or functions that you need, please ask in the VENUS Library Downloads thread.
Since joining the forum, I have been providing all the feedback to our internal teams at Hamilton. I greatly appreciate everyone’s expert insight into what is needed to improve our solutions and will work to make sure your voices are heard! Many of the suggestions mirror requests that the Hamilton applications team has been wanting as well so it is encouraging to see agreement amongst the VENUS users out there.
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I’ve come up with a few more!
- Breakpoints + debug: would be useful to halt a method at a certain line and be able to inspect current variables etc.
- Programmatic exposure to settings: a lot of the settings for venus are performed in the config window, but it would be useful to allow configuration using an open format (JSON, YAML) to allow easier on-device configuration.
- SILA: an open standard for device communication. IMO it would be great to have all instruments and robot connected by this.
@EricSindelar_Hamilton, if you need more information on any of my suggestions, I’m very happy to have a chat.
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Providing SILA World indeed be great!
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Hi,
Thank you so much for this post and the forum in general. I’m so glad to see many other engineers working on lab automation and all that common knowledge in one place.
Here are some suggestions for features :
1- Better transfer of deck layouts between VoV and STAR (HxTypeConverter doesn’t propose VoV)
2- Ability to create C#/VB.net scripts and interpret them (like Biosero GBG is doing).
3- Get a more polished scheduler, right now changing the timings by a second can change dramatically the scheduling. It’d be nice to simulate that in DOE fashion.
4- CTRL+Z has been mentioned, but the ability to do it on deck layout too would be needed. Many mistakes have been made by moving a plate inadvertently…
5- Ability to create zones on the deck for the robot to control collision (like setting a plate washer and avoiding the 384 head to hit it during run time).
6- On STAR : Create a mode where the robot goes slower when we are developing on it with open doors (for machine risk directive) like vantage.
7- Specific to French users : Get a library or something that allows to switch “culture” in the code like in .Net. For instance in France a comma is the decimal delimiter and in US it’s in a dot. That leads to a lot of time lost for international teams.
8- Allow nested user error handling and better support it : idea being to do a sort of nested try/catch.
9- Allow complete c#/xaml integration with dialog boxes (right now the xaml is pretty limited). It will answer a lot of needs around dialog boxes and leave it open for users to program.
10- Restarting a process from a certain step in the method. I know there’s workarounds but having a built-in solution would be huge. Even for security reasons in Europe (machine directive).
11- Documentation about registry keys: for example, the GetWorfklowDuration library is using a registry key and unless I’m mistaken there’s no way to know it without being part of Hamilton.
Let me know if you want more explanation on any item, thanks again for the great post.
Yassine
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@EricSindelar_Hamilton, not sure if you’re still looking for requests, but on my point 4 above, regarding source control, would there be a way of either having .med files (and others) not be binary? As in, could Venus read and interpret the .hsl files directly rather than using an intermediate binary file? Or, at least, have a converter we can use (which runs on linux too so we can use it in continuous integration (CI) tests/github actions? That would be amazing.
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You might be able to use HxCfgFilConverter.exe (with the flag “/t”) found within HAMILTON\Bin - with a local git hook to achieve the result you want.
It will convert .med files to ASCII.
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The hsl files are what is compiled and parsed during the run control, not the .med file. So, you may be able to track changes to the hsl files after someone makes an update to the method editor?
As for any requests, please continue to submit ideas to this thread. Our product management team is aware of the forum and reviews the content! Thank you for taking the time to contribute!
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In my experience it is just so smooth to use linux for CI - have you had experience with Windows and CI?
Thanks Eric. We do in fact use the hsl for historic tracked changes, but that’s only unidirectional - it would be great to be able to merge changes back into the hsl/file Venus uses.
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I will look into this, thanks!
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Hi Eric,
Could we add a feature to change the array type after naming/declaring the array? i.e. if I forget to set the array type as sequences, and used the default array type as variables, I have to delete the line, and the variable name to start over again.
I relayed this to product management. Thanks!
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I got a suggestion for adding labware to the deck. The search labware box is nice but could be better. If user could insert a product number in that box and get results it would be very helpful. It’s much easier to enter/remember a 6 digit number than a 10+digit string with shift characters.
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Hello Eric,
I am really looking forward for Venus 6. There are too many features which are floating as tentative for venus 6 adn looking to see what turns in final version
Hi Kalpesh,
At SLAS, Hamilton will host a talk that will cover the new features and functions with the next VENUS update. I encourage you to visit our booth and speak directly with our product management team in regards to our future plans.
I will be there as well and would also be happy to discuss! I am encouraged by what I am seeing with an early build and what is planned for the future!
-Eric
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I will be there. do u know what time is the talk and where?
