Floating VI front panel

I have question regarding keeping a specific VI front panel always "On Top" of any other front panels(Sort of like toolbar pallete floats over the "main" window in LabVIEW). I can set the front panel properties to be a dialog (ModaL) but then I don't have access to menu or any other controls on the other front panels. I can set the front panel properties to normal, but when the operators click on main front panel the other front panel goes to the back. We have very very very novice computers and they get confused and they can't "find" the "other front panel".
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

If you have LabVIEW 7.0 or 7.1, there is another selection in Window Apperance setup called 'Floating' that does exactly what you want.
If you have an earlier version, this Dev Zone thread may help.
Ed
Ed Dickens - Certified LabVIEW Architect - DISTek Integration, Inc. - NI Certified Alliance Partner
Using the Abort button to stop your VI is like using a tree to stop your car. It works, but there may be consequences.

Similar Messages

Multiple (floating) front panel application in labview

I am trying to build a multi-window application. My goal is to be able to have multiple floating windows open simultaneously, which all allow user input.
My problem is, when I open a new floating window, I can no longer click buttons in the other windows.
I've attached a simple example of what I'm trying to do. The Main.vi has two parallel loops and two event structures. One loop has the sole purpose of running the Sub.vi after a button is clicked. The other loop performs some functions when the other buttons are clicked. Since these loops run in parallel, I would think that I can interact with both VI's when the front panels are open.
What am I missing here?
Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Your bottom loop stops because you have a regular call to the subVI.
The event loop cannot finish until the subVI finishes.
To strictly answer your question, Take a look at the options for the EVENT structure. By default the LOCK OUT KEYBOARD UNTIL THIS EVENT IS FINISHED is set ON.
That means just what it says. When you call that subVI, the event locks out the keyboard/mouse on the calling (MAIN) VI.
Having TWO event structures in one VI is asking for trouble.
I have an app with 10-12 windows, all of which are overlappable, and usable.
the way you do it is to run all 10 VIs at startup, but keep them closed.
Send each one an EVENT from the main VI when you want it to open. All they do in response to that event is FP.OPEN.

How to convert U32 value obtained from color control of front panel to float(SGL) for use with IMAQ Draw ?.

I am trying to get user color inputs from front panel and use it in IMAQ Draw. I need to draw an oval of a certain color in a background of another color. Both these color values are user input. The problem is IMAQ Draw requires SGL color value and the color controls of front panel give U32. I have tried conversion VI's which hasn't worked. HELP !!!

Jake,
I think the color control can be wired directly to the input, but I am not positive. I don't know of any color conversions that would help.
Make sure your image is a color image. You can't draw colors on a grayscale image.
You might want to consider using overlays, which appear on top of the image but are not part of the image.
Bruce
Bruce Ammons
Ammons Engineering

Exporting front panel of subVI to calling VI

Is there a way to "export" the front panel of a subVI so that it becomes part of the (or a pane of) the calling VI? If so, what is it called? I don't know the right language to search for examples of this concept.
My problem is as follows:--
I built a nice, classy interface to a test program that allows the user a great deal of flexibility in controlling the parameters of the device under test and in seeing the impact of those parameters on other parameters. This has about 8-12 control objects, some of which are also wired to act as indicators so that changing one can display on another and vice versa. This interface and its supporting program is big enough that it belongs in its own subVI rather than in the main program. In addition, I built another interface that charts signals from the device under test; this is also big enough that it belongs in its own subVI.
I would like to have the front panels of both of these VIs be part of the front panel of the main program. That is, the front panel of the main program should "inherit" the front panel of each subVI wholesale. If I need to tweak the interface of one of the subVIs -- for example, to add, delete, or replace controls, indicators, displays, charts, etc. -- I would like to be able to do this without having to wrestle with the main VI and the connector pane between it and the subVI.
It seems that LabView should be capable of this, but I cannot find any help, guidance, pointers, etc., in the documentation, textbooks, or examples.
Could someone give me a clue?
Thanks,
Hugh Lauer

So I tried to configure a subpanel, and found it very confusing. It seems that when you put a subpanel control on the front panel, you have to then set up a way to invoke the subVI. Since my subVI has some inputs and outputs on its connector pane, I created a VI reference for it and wired that to the type specifier node of the Open VI Reference node. I then inserted a Call VI by Reference node, so that I could wire up the inputs and outputs of my subVI. Finally, I wired this to the subpanel Invoke Method (Insert VI).
This is different from the examples I found. In those cases, the subVIs had no inputs or outputs on their connector panes, but rather took all of their information from their front panels.
I got different behavior on different attempts to run it. The most common (and most recent) behavior is that the subVI front panel opens up a few seconds after the main VI starts, but it is not quite "in" the subpanel. Instead, it is offset about an inch from both the top and left, as if it were a floating window that I cannot move. Also, it has annoying scroll bars on the bottom and right, which I don't want.
Incidentally, I have two of these subVIs, and I have not yet tried to put the second one into a subpanel.
What I would really like to do is
have both subVIs populate their respective subpanels as soon as the main VI starts, but before any work gets done.
after both subpanels are loaded, run the two subVIs in parallel, one to control the device under test and the other to capture its signals.
have no scrollbars in the subpanel windows.
In fact, what would be the best from a GUI point of view is for the two subpanels to be permanently part of the front panel of the main VI.
Any guidance or insight would be most helpful.
REgards,
Hugh

How to keep a "front panel" open during another sequence?

Hello everybody,
I'm new on the TestStand forum and I have a question for my project.
I need to make a test sequence with several sub-steps: Barcode reading, Data reading, Data analysis etc... and all these steps in a "For" or "Do... while" loop under TestStand.
Before doing the loop, I want to create a "global HMI" step using labview, with on the front panel, the status of each sub-steps. I need to update the status of each sub-step after their execution.
The sequence TS is:
Step Action Labview: HMI.vi (display front panel when calling vi)
Loop for
Barcode reading
Data reading
Data analysis...
That's why I need to keep the front panel of "HMI.vi" always open to updated /display the status of each sub-step. (something like colors of a LED). I doner 't want to call the HMI.vi after each sub-step.
I understood it's a multi-threading process and the reference of HMI.vi should always be active during all the "for loop", but I don't how to keepthe reference.
Could you please kindly show me how to do it under TestStand (verstion 4.1) with LV (7.1).
Many thanks in advance,

Hi zuzu,
A UIMessage is typically used as a method to alert and pass information from your sequence or code modules to the User Interface.
For a good discussion on this, refer to the section titled "Communication from the Test to the User Interface" here:
Developer Zone Tutorial: Best Practices for NI TestStand User Interface Development
However, you can register a callback to listen for these UIMessages in other parts of your code besides the UI as well. That's what we are doing in this case with the floating panel.
So basically, in your "Update HMI" step, you would post a UIMessage using RunState.Thread.PostUIMessage.
This posts the UIMessage, and you can pass whatever value you want from the "Update HMI" step to the HMI.vi.
For information on the function call, refer to:
NI TestStand Help: Thread.PostUIMessage
In this case, we are sending a UIMessage with message code 10200, along with 2 pieces of data, Locals.Progress (a numeric) and "TestProcedure" (a string).
Typically, you can pass a Number, a String, a Boolean and a Variant with each UI Message. If you need to send multiple pieces of data of the same type (your second question), then you should bundle them together into an array or cluster (container) and pass it via the ActiveX parameter.
See the following forum posts for more details:
reference a numeric array in PostUIMessageEX
HOW To pass more than one numeric data with ActiveX postUIMessage
Jervin Justin
NI TestStand Product Manager

Display faux spreadsheet on front-panel

Hey, thanks to all that have been helping me answer all my LV questions. This site is awesome.
My newest question:
I am writing data to a spreadsheet in my program... I recieve a measurement from my scale via rs232... then, I display the data (floating point), the time (string) it was collected, and a comment (string) that the operator enters on the front-panel... They are prompted to "accept the data into spreadsheet"... when they accept, the data gets sent to the Excel file and the indicator boxes for the data, time, and comment go blank.
What I would really like to do is have a "faux spreadsheet" (in addition to the indicator boxes) that displays the data that is sent to my Excel file. It's appearance would be similar to the Excel file. I tried using "build table", but it doesn't seem to accept strings... only numbers. Is there another method I could use?
Next, I need to format the Excel file with column widths, fonts, etc... is the ActiveX control the best way to do this? Any examples out there?
Man, thanks for all the help. This program has taken on a life of it's own (as these automation projects ALWAYS do).
Thanks!

You must have tried the Express Table function. Instead, use the normal table on the control palette. It is a 2D string array. The other way to do it is to embed an actual Excel spreadsheet on the front panel by using an ActiveX container.
Yes, you need to use ActiveX to format the spreadsheet file. NI sells a toolkit that will do this and if you were search the forum for "Excel", you'd find hundreds of posts on the subject and many include example code.

"The VI's front panel may have been removed."

I was running my program in the development environment and had a sudden exit from labview (w/o a microsoft crash dialog).
So I start labview, file recovery comes up so I recover all and then save all (don't remember if it involved the file in question).
Now a subVI is throwing this error every time I try to open it:
Everything seems to be working and no broken run arrows, etc., but I can't get it open and I need to. Anyone know how to recover from this?
-B
bah! I meant to post this in LabVIEW. Can someone move it?
Message Edited by blawson on 10-22-2009 01:00 PM
-Barrett
CLD

Cross-posting a similar problem: Unable to display the Front Panel of a VI
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Can I embed an aquired image in the front panel or does it have to be in its own window?

I need to be repeatedly displaying processed images and I know that I can make the image window "float" so that it is always on top and never becomes hidden when I click in the vi's front panel, but it is inconvenient that if I move the vi window or scroll within it, the image window stays where it is. I would like the image display to be a part of the front panel if that is possible, so that both move together.
Thanks

This is fairly simple to do.
I have attached Make IMAQ Child.vi, which is a slightly modified version of one I originally found on the NI website.
One required input is the filename of the parent VI, which can easily be obtained by using the "Current VI's Path" constant and Strip Path to remove the filename from the path.
The other required input is the IMAQ window number.
This will make the IMAQ window a child panel within the specified parent window. It will move with the parent window.
Bruce
Bruce Ammons
Ammons Engineering
Attachments:
Make_IMAQ_Child.vi ‏39 KB

K8NGM2-FID - connecting of front panel audio (AC'97)

Hello,
I have a K8NGM2-FID based pc running XP Prof. I have a Chieftec LCX-01B-B-SL case with front panel audio. This panel is compatible with AC'97 standard. PIN Assigment of the internal Frontpanel connectors for Audio is below described:
I red in manual of my mobo:
"The JAUD1 front panel audio connector allows you to connect to the front panel audio and is compliant with Intel® Front Panel I/O Connectivity Design Guide."
I red Front Panel I/O Connectivity Design Guide (downloaded from intel site) and:
"2.3.3 Audio Design Considerations
Front panel audio design in conjunction with motherboard audio header design is dependant upon the type of audio CODEC being used on the motherboard. In the past, AC97 Integrated Audio CODECs were prevalent. With the introduction of Intel High Definition Audio, many new motherboard designs are switching over to High Definition (HD) audio CODECs. Designersshould note that AC’97 and Intel High Definition Audio front panel motherboards and I/O cardsimplementations are different and may not be directly compatible or interchangeable
CAUTION
It is strongly recommended that motherboard designers only use Intel® HD Audio analog front panel dongles with the Intel® HD Audio analog front panel header to insure that the jack detection and dynamic re-tasking capability is preserved. Passive AC’97 analog front panel dongles (ones which leave the 5V Analog pin-7 line unconnected on the dongle) may be used with the Intel® HD Audio analog front panel header. But note that the front panel jack detection and re-tasking functionality will be lost as the AC’97 jacks cannot support connection to the SENSE line. In addition, software must be aware that an AC’97 dongle is being used with an Intel® HD Audio analog header since the software might need to dedicate codec ports that are connected to the header to meet the product’s intended functionality.
2.3.4.4 AC’97 Header Pin Jumpers
The rear panel audio output jacks are disabled when headphones are plugged in. If the front panel interface board is not connected to the front panel audio header, jumpers should be installed across header pin pairs 1-2, 3-4, 5-6, and 9-10. If these jumpers are not installed, the rear panel line out connector will be inoperative and microphone input pins 1 and 3 will be left floating, which could lead to elevated back panel microphone noise and cross talk.
NOTE
Motherboards that have the foot print for a front panel header, but depopulate the front panel audio header must have 0 ohm resistors as options to connect the FP_OUT and FP_RETURN signals. These resistors must be installed when the header is depopulated to insure audio is routed
to the back panel."
Can I connect this front panel audio to front Panel Audio Connector (JAUD1) of K8NGM2-FID (Realtek High Definition Audio)? Will it be work correctly?

No I don't think it will, I had the same problem with my Coolermaster Centurion case, the pin out configs are different. I just left it disconnected, and didn't worry about it

Open and close a vi front panel dynamically

I created a main vi panel that display all the signal names. I like the main vi to open a new plot screen when I double click on the signal name. I was able to do that using invoke node. But I when I close the plot screen by clicking on the Window "Close" button, the main vi was not able to open a new one again. So I disabled the Window "Close" button and only use the "Stop" button coded in while loop in the blockdigram of the plot screen. It worked, but the plot screen is still open and changed to editing mode. Is there an easy way to close the plot screen by only one click. Another question is that how does the main vi can open multiple plot screens. Thanks for your advice.

I think I know what happens:
If you close the front panel of a sub-vi, the code is still running, so the VI doesn't terminate and somehow you can't address it (it don't know how you communicate with your sub-vi).
So in your sub-vi you should monitor the panel-close event, and finish the code of the VI and finish the VI
Ton
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My LabVIEW Ideas
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Open and Close Front Panel of SubVI

Hi all,
Running LabVIEW 2011 on Windows 7 x64. I am trying to get a subVI front panel to open from my main FP with the press of a button and then close with a button press in the subVI. Here is the piece from my main FP that calls the VI and opens the FP
Plots is defined in another loop and all of the loops are in a flat sequence. I did it this way because I want it to start with the first press and not stop my main loop from running. I have moved the item in the left loop around a lot so I'm not sure if I can run that in the same loop as the event or not. Either way opening the VI seems to work fine.
The problem shows up when trying to close the subVI for the SECOND time. The code is here:
As I said, the first time I open and close the VI everything works as I expect it should. I am then able to open it again but now the "blank button" doesn't function and I can't close the window or even open the block diagram to probe anything. I have been trying to figure this out for awhile, any insite would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Its good that you found the bug.
This code may serve as a way for you to compare notes.
Ben
Ben Rayner
I am currently active on.. MainStream Preppers
Rayner's Ridge is under construction

I have a VI and an attched .txt data file. Now I want to read the data from the .txt file and display it as an array in the front panel. But the result is not right. Any help?

I have a VI and an attched .txt data file. Now I want to read the data from the .txt file and display it as an array in the front panel. But the result is not right. Any help?
Attachments:
try2.txt ‏2 KB
read_array.vi ‏21 KB

The problem is in the delimiters in your text file. By default, Read From Spreadsheet File.vi expects a tab delimited file. You can specify a delimiter (like a space), but Read From Spreadsheet File.vi has a problem with repeated delimiters: if you specify a single space as a delimiter and Read From Spreadsheet File.vi finds two spaces back-to-back, it stops reading that line. Your file (as I got it from your earlier post) is delimited by 4 spaces.
Here are some of your choices to fix your problem.
1. Change the source file to a tab delimited file. Your VI will then run as is.
2. Change the source file to be delimited by a single space (rather than 4), then wire a string constant containing one space to the delimiter input of Read From Spreadsheet File.vi.
3. Wire a string constant containing 4 spaces to the delimiter input of Read From Spreadsheet File.vi. Then your text file will run as is.
Depending on where your text file comes from (see more comments below), I'd vote for choice 1: a tab delimited text file. It's the most common text output of spreadsheet programs.
Comments for choices 1 and 2: Where does the text file come from? Is it automatically generated or manually generated? Will it be generated multiple times or just once? If it's manually generated or generated just once, you can use any text editor to change 4 spaces to a tab or to a single space. Note: if you want to change it to a tab delimited file, you can't enter a tab directly into a box in the search & replace dialog of many programs like notepad, but you can do a cut and paste. Before you start your search and replace (just in the text window of the editor), press tab. A tab character will be entered. Press Shift-LeftArrow (not Backspace) to highlight the tab character. Press Ctrl-X to cut the tab character. Start your search and replace (Ctrl-H in notepad in Windows 2000). Click into the Find What box. Enter four spaces. Click into the Replace With box. Press Ctrl-V to paste the tab character. And another thing: older versions of notepad don't have search and replace. Use any editor or word processor that does.

Square root symbol in front panel

how to inser a square root symbol in the front panel in the given vi snippet? i want to write V3 instead of sqrt(3). using Labview 8.6.
Solved!
Go to Solution.
Attachments:
GUI.png ‏15 KB

Hi,
Thank you all.. I could insert the sqrt symbol in the GUI.
I also want to initialise one of the strings with the same symbol. So I copied the sqrt symbol and inserted that in place of "sqrt(3)" . but it switched back to a special character. I selected that special character and selected symbol font from the font menu, then it switched back to sqrt symbol. but as soon as i clicked the mouse outside, it reverted to the old special character(may be the one corresponding to 0xD3 in Application Font).
How to fix this?
Attachments:
sqrtinit.png ‏5 KB
sqrt_reverted.png ‏5 KB

Front Panel Mass Binding Project Variables Issue

Hello -
When attempting to bind controls to shared variables through the front panel mass binding option, there is an issue where you can not seem to bind a "project item" to the control. The method of binding I am using is to export a text list of control names, urls, mode, and function to a text editor utilizing the front panel binding mass configuration options. The text editor shows, in the fourth column, a "0" for no function, a "1" for network item, and a "2" for project item. when attempting to import the list back into the front panel binding mass configuration, all "2" indications become "1", as all items are treated as network. Thus one can not effectively bind to a project shared variable item.
The binding works fine manually by means of utilizing the properties selection of the control, but it is difficult to do this for 821 controls, as in my application.
My application is based on a OPC served group of 821 variables which are linked to controls and indicators through the shared variable representation for each item created in the multiple variable editor.
Does anyone have a work around for this issue, as it is a showstopper right now, ie, you can not effectively bind a large quantity of controls or indicators to project located shared variables as required.
The rationale behind utilizing project located variables instead of network located variables is to reduce the amount of calls to the OPC server which was causnig a large latency in the refresh of the 821 items. With the items defined as shared variables within the project, a single call is issued, which has tremendously sped up the refresh cycle for the list of variables.
Thank you in advance for your insight in this matter,
John DeCroos

Hello Brian A.,
In response to you comment --
"in 2006, and John did not follow up with any more information for Efosa"
-- a great deal of information was provided to NI (Efosa and many, many others, up to the product manager for the DCS module). I have never heard back on a fix for this bug for the identified version of LabVIEW. The reply by Efosa here was well after we had shipped our product -- (please see date + Efosa's apology) -- we had found our own solution as is identified in the original post.
My solution was, as is also indicated in my original post, to manually bind each variable. This was unbelievably time consuming, but was all I had.
The version of software I am now working on uses far less variables, manually bound to avoid the multiple binding issue we had in the past.
I have checked the mass binding function in LV 8.5.1, it works fine now. I guess it would have been nice to have had a reply that the bug had been resolved ---- would have helped me out a bit.
Thank you,
John DeCroos

Reading main VI front panel in SubVI

Hi,
I'm trying to create a subVI that writes a header text file containing info on essential parameters in my measurements. My mainVI front panel has a few dozen controls, some of them contained in a handful of clusters.
What I'd want is just to be able to access and read the values at the subVI to construct the string I want to write to the file.
I wouldn't like to proceed the dumb way, i.e., building an array of clusters or individual controls or references to them and passing that to my subVI (and, obviously not passing each individual control/cluster as a subVI input).
I figured I'd like to have some kind of refnum of the mainVI frontpanel passed to my subVI and dig use a big pile of property nodes to dig out the info that i need, inside the SubVI. Is this a feasible solution and if so, what's the way to conduct it? If not, what would be a better way?
As before, I'm using LV7 so in case you answer with block diagram examples, I'd appreciate screenshots of them.
Thanks,
Lauri

Vostokki wrote:
I'm trying to create a subVI that writes a header text file containing info on essential parameters in my measurements. My mainVI front panel has a few dozen controls, some of them contained in a handful of clusters.
What I'd want is just to be able to access and read the values at the subVI to construct the string I want to write to the file.
I wouldn't like to proceed the dumb way, i.e., building an array of clusters or individual controls or references to them and passing that to my subVI (and, obviously not passing each individual control/cluster as a subVI input).
Lauri
Actually that is the preferred way to do. Why you may ask? It is because you decouple the functionality (creating your log file header) from your specific user interface. By doing so you can reuse this VI in other places or applications. By using the references directly this ties the subVI to the calling VI. Unless the subVI is specifically doing something to the UI itself a subVI should avoid accessing data it needs via direct references. It should require the data to be wired in with the appropriate clusters, arrays or whatever your data needs are.
Mark Yedinak
"Does anyone know where the love of God goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours?"
Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot

Floating VI front panel

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