What I'm missing about HLAs

Hey BitBob,

thanks for your reply!
Just to be on the safe side…
My post was mostly looking for explanations and timelines, than being really unhappy with Saleae and the software at all…

I’ll let Saleae provide an official response, but my guess is that the embedded python environment for HLAs is a restricted subset of a full python install, and the version is fixed at build time of the Logic 2 application itself to be compatible across all supported PC targets (Windows, MacOS, and Linux) and all users that use it and who are on various different Logic 2 releases as well.

I agree that keeping it consistent is necessary and an issue in itself.
If I remember correctly, there was the idea out in the forum, to allow the user to switch between built-in Python environment and providing its own environment, with all benefits and responsiblities… Especially, given that Python emphasizes virtual environments to heavily, this seems rather logical as a conclusion / solution…
Also curious for an official answer from @timreyes or @markgarrison
I also upvoted the entries, but 2 or 3 votes… not sure, how extensive this voting is used by user…

Likewise, I’m guessing they hand selected the pre-bundled libraries & packages and haven’t prioritized figuring out a portable way to allow user-driven upgrades and/or new package dependencies.

I get the feeling in the last months / years, that several important features aren’t high on the list… or rather fundamental features… what separate Python environments and therefore easier import would unlock in terms of solutions / high-level analyzer I can only imagine…

Meanwhile, I think you can technically ‘hack’ your own Logic 2 python installation to add more libraries/packages, but then your HLA will only work on installations ‘patched’ the same way, and wouldn’t work as a marketplace extension.

I did this (as outlined in the spoiler) and it solved my issue, but I would really like som eproper documentation on this (including a starting point for getting the proper packages installed locally)…

Python stubs seem like a great idea, but again, no progress since June 2023…
Doesn’t seem like a large issue to fix, but definitely worthwhile…

When trying to get overlapping frames to work, I cam across the discussion with answered my question why I was getting an errror message… It didn’t really answered the question why it has not been addressed since than… July 2021…

I am OK with software not having certain features immediately, and adding them later is fine, if there is consistent progress towards the essential features…
And as long these limitations are clearly communicated up-front…
In the documentation of the HLA frames, it says “Decode a frame from an input analyzer, and return None or 1 or more AnalyzerFrame objects.”… no mention of none parallel frames only…

Nevertheless, I got my CANopen dissector working…

Cheers and a nice weekend
Niels Göran