Get Specific References for all Controls

Question

Using slightly modified code from here, I am generating an array of all control references on my main front panel which is then passed through to a number of subVIs. Although this functionality does work, it would be preferable to get specific references to the controls (for example, Boolean RefNum instead of Control RefNum). 
Getting these specific references seems possible using To More Specific Class and Class Specifier constants. However, data storage becomes an issue because I can no longer use arrays (as they are a different data type). I am not sure if there is another way to pass this data on. I have experimented casting the RefNums to Variants, but to get the data from the variant, I have to know what RefNum type I am expecting which sort of defeats the purpose of doing this in the first place.
A secondary problem is keeping the names of the references. The Control RefNums do not have names associated with them nor do I know how to assign names to them. I've again tried using variants and using the OpenG Set Data Name function, but this crashes LabVIEW without any indication of why.
I've attached a version of my code that tries assign names using OpenG Set Data Name and build a variant array. To run it, simple add the VI as a subVI to a VI that has some boolean controls on the Front Panel. Apologies for the rough state of the code - I'm still in the process of figuring out how to make it work so things are a bit messy.
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Attachments:
Get Specific Control Refs.vi ‏28 KB

Answer 1

I don't know if you'll get much better.  There is really no way I know of to have some fully flexible way of building named clusters of references based on any given front panel set you feed to it.
I tend to do things the manual way (as there are also a bunch of references to front panel elements I wouldn't need).  I would do all the bundling work in a subVI.
I'm attaching a zip file that contains the key VI's (unless I missed something) on the first project where I really tried to abstract out the reference building.  The files are LV9.
On my main VI, I have the subVI called Build UI References early in the VI during an initialization phase.  I pass the reference to the main VI into that subVI that builds all the references.  I worked it as a master cluster that contains elements that are arrays of references of related controls.  It uses another subVI called Get References and Label Names that I created to help find controls.  I still need to use More Specific Class to get the property references, but I don that only once at the beginning.  I then pass that cluster wire out and to anywhere in my VI that would need access to the references for front panel elements.
I use arrays of strings to supply the names I need to build and bundle the references.  This lets me ignore controls I don't care about.  The disadvantages to my system is that if I change the name of any control, I need to update the name within this subVI.  And if I want to add any controls, not only do I need to add the label names for the searching functions, I also need to update my typedef cluster (and you definitely want this to be a typedef) to add a spot to store the new reference.
I hope this gives you some ideas.  It worked for me and I will likely use the scheme on another project (or even rewrite past projects using this scheme.)  If there are any ideas for improvements, I'd be happy to hear them.
Attachments:
Build UI refs.zip ‏83 KB