[Greg McKaskle]

You have a lot of questions, and I'm not sure I understand quite what you are looking for. Specifically, I don't understand what "nicer" relates to.

I haven't personally used the other simulation tools, but I do not know of one with all the features in the NI one.

There are very good tutorials for using Java, just search for them. I feel compelled to comment on switching to C++. While a great language, it is the most unforgiving. It will expose you to uninitialized variables, stale and uninitialized pointers, memory corruptions, memory leaks, and more. If you don't have a mentor who is proficient in C++, this is a very gutsy move.

At one point you mention wanting to know how to make LV easier. I'm not sure what you have tried, but there are many help resources on the getting started page, on ni.com/frc, and on this forum, but you will need to ask specific questions. There is no EASY button in FIRST.

The cRIO reads LV and Java programs into memory using either the debugging tools or using the startup command. The java program is loaded into the interpreter and the LV code is native, so it is scheduled by one or more OS threads. I suspect this didn't answer your question, but if you can be more specific I'll try again.

Greg McKaskle