How do I store front panel values on LabVIEW RT

I have a program that auto launches on a PXI. Is there any way to store the front panel values, so that the program starts up again with the last values that were used? The ini file method will not work because I am using LabVIEW RT.
Regards,
S G
Certified LabVIEW Architect, Certified TestStand Developer, Certified Professional Instructor

The best way to initialize inputs in RT is to use constants, or use the Communication Wizard in LabVIEW 7.0 to create a VI that initializes communication to the code running on the RT target. This becomes your user interface. One final suggestion is to use the Operate>>Make Current Values Default feature that is available in RT also.

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How to add silver front panel theme for labview 2010

how to add silver front panel theme for labview 2010

Mahisnair wrote:
yes i had tried this way but the vi built with silver theme doesnt look good in 2010 :-(
wish if there was a way to include silver theme in 2010
The only way I see to make it like that would be to recreate the theme in LabVIEW 2010 with external bitmap objects. Unfortunately it won't be as functional as the silver controls in various terms such scaling (bitmaps scale very badly) or transparency and click through functionality (a bitmap assigned to a control part will always catch all clicks and never allow a click to pass through anywhere to a lower layered part).
The silver controls are using special internal graphic objects that were added in LabVIEW 2011, so recreating silver controls with the same functionality in earlier LabVIEW versions is impossible.
Rolf Kalbermatter
CIT Engineering Netherlands
a division of Test & Measurement Solutions

How to create two front panels

Hi in my application i am using two Monitors ..
so i like to use one monitor for Vision display and control operation (Front panel )
And another For Motion Control Front panel .. is it possible to do this ..
(In this case How to split my Front panel of my Vi ..)

Hi
If we use Border Layout, the Panels which are added to the main panel are not displaying properly.
Solution is to use BoxLayout with AXIS parameter. Statement looks like this:
mainPanel.setLayout(new BoxLayout(mainPanel, BoxLayout(PAGE_AXIS));
Thank You for giving Reply,

How to resize the front panel to fit different resolutions

I m using LabVIEW 8.2 on Windows XP SP2
I've tried both “maintain proportions of window for different monitor resolutions” and “scale all objects on front panel as the window resizes” selected but just messed up everything when i switched to another different resolution. It's annoying since I'm using 22 inch monitor to do the coding but the user supposed to run it on laptop or wince.
Any solutions to it?
Thx in advance.

Thank you all. Following is the reply from NI support. I think the best way is to edit vi in low resolution.
One of the easiest ways to tackle varying screen resolutions is to design
the front panel to the lowest resolution that you expect it to run on. It
should then look acceptable on any screen larger than that.
However, you can get a bit more tricky by programmatically determining the
computer's screen resolution and then dynamically changing the size of your
front panel objects. Use an Application Property Node and select
Display>>All Monitors to return the current screen size. Then, according to
the screen size, you can size the control or indicator programmatically
using the Size property node for your front panel objects.
Ultimately, these issues have often been a result of font size issues.
Specifically, this can be a problem when two machines have different
desktop theme/font settings. If your objects are coming out in different
sizes on different computers, you can setup up LabVIEW to use the same font
on different systems by modifying the .INI file.
The easiest way is to do this: use Tools->Options->Fonts from the LabVIEW
GUI. You can then set the system fonts to anything you want. After you
have done this on one machine, open your INI file (it is in the same
directory as the LabVIEW executable) with any text editor and copy the
corresponding entries to another file. Add these entries to the INI files
on any machines you want to lock to font. You will probably run into
issues if you are supporting different platforms (Windows and Mac or Mac
and Linux, for example), since the fonts you want may not be available on
both platforms. There are Windows fonts available for both Mac and Linux
platforms, so this can be somewhat ameliorated.
This is all I can think of, but that's not to say these are the only
solutions. You might check the Discussion Forums, as many of our LabVIEW
Champions have tackled similar issues and offer their expertise as well.
Here's just a few threads that I'd like to refer you to:
How to make the size of VI and controls unchanged irrespective of the
resolution?
http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&message.id=273613&requireLogin=False
How to program the front panel size to fit different monitor resolution?
http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&message.id=87160&requireLogin=False
I hope this discussion helps you along the way in your application
development. Please let me know if you have any further questions/comments
and I would be happy to discuss them with you.
Otherwise, it was a pleasure assisting you and thank you for choosing
National Instruments.

How to show the front panel when launching VI with Call by reference node??

Hello!
I just wonder how I make the front panel visible during execution when I launch the VI with CALL BY REFERENCE NODE.
Se example.
Could u also show me how to change different properties (window size ..) of the front panel??? (launched with CALL BY REFERENCE NODE)
Thank you!
Attachments:
test.vi ‏18 KB

In VI Properties>>Window Apperance>>Customize you can check "Show front panel when called". This will open the front panel on each call. It doesn't matter how the call was initiated.
You can set a lot of Front panel properties during runtime. Place a Property Node in the block diagram. Change the class from App to VI. Under properties select Front Panel window>>Panel bounds to set the position and size of the front panel.
Waldemar
Using 7.1.1, 8.5.1, 8.6.1, 2009 on XP and RT
Don't forget to give Kudos to good answers and/or questions

Maximum Character size of Front Panel indicator in LabVIEW

Hi,
I have a simple question that I hope somebody can answer. Is there a maximum character size that can be displayed in a Front Panel indicator in LabVIEW? If so, what is it? I have a VI that is continuously reading a serial port and updating a front panel indicator, and I need to know how much text can be displayed before it either truncates or throws an error. This is for LabVIEW 2010 SP1.
Thank you,
J Korn

A quick Flatten to string shows how LabVIEW stores strings {size-data} Size is a U32 so 4294967295 characters max.
The big thing to remember is this memory must be contiguous (and the Indicator requires a COPY) so in practice the performance hit for constantly allocating larger and larger buffers for the data and available memory impose practical limits much lower than the 4294967295 Char maximum. Probably better to log the data to a file and maintain only the last x characters on the indicator and use the file to look a history data
Jeff

VI containing Event Structure will not receive front panel events in LabVIEW Real-Time.

Hi again, I'm working in my first UI (attached VI).
It works when running directly from PC. It doesn't when running from cRIO, there's the message "VI containing Event Structure will not receive front panel events in LabVIEW Real-Time". I've been reading and I found that "Event structures on RT targets do not support events associated with user interface objects, such as VI panels or controls. For example, associating the Value Change event with a control does not work. RT targets support only user events".
Is that the problem? If it is, how can I create Mouse Up, Mouse Enter, Value Change (or other user interface events) user events?
If I run my VI in FPGA mode should it run?
Attachments:
HMI.vi ‏33 KB

Since it looks like you are new to the whole RT and machine control, I recommend giving this a good read: NI LabVIEW for CompactRIO Developer's Guide
There are only two ways to tell somebody thanks: Kudos and Marked Solutions
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Is there possibility to use the front panel without installing Labview?

Hallo,
i have two small questions:
1- Is it possible to use the front panel of a labview software without needing to install Labview itself? i mean something similar to the "power point viewer" which can view the Power Point files without installing the microsoft office.
2- In an intensity Graph, how can one change the color?
thanks.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

Hi,
Regarding your questions
1)You need to have Labview and Application builder installed on your machine. If you have that you can make an stand alone application (EXE) and then you can deploy it on systems that does not have LabView and can view it, However you will not be able to see the block diagram.
Here is a link that explains how to do so
http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/371361A-01/lvhowto/exe_ex/
2) You can either do it by using propery node or marker method. The following link explains it
http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/1ADFF221E27F5B5886256E6F007C7B58?OpenDocument
Hope it helps.
Regards,
Fawad
Fawad Nisar
Applications Engineer
National Instruments UK & Ireland

What is the most efficient way to have full access to the front panel on RT Labview?

I have a RT machine that needs to do its job and also port the front panel to an external machine over the network. What is the most efficient way to do it? Using as little of the RT time as possible but providing full functionality to the RT front panel.
So far I have been using it directly from Labview - running the VI on a remote (RT) and have the front panel on local Labview (WINDOWS). I know I can do it with also through WWW (not very happy with that though).
LV2009 SP1.
Thanks

Running a compiled executable on the RT target, rather than running it within the development environment, is probably slightly more efficient but limits you to the web interface. If you're running within the LabVIEW environment, I doubt there's a noticeable difference in efficiency from the RT perspective between the web server and the LabVIEW front panel, although that's mostly a guess (I would expect the RT system to send identical data in each case, once the front panel is loaded). Those are your only options in modern LabVIEW versions. In LabVIEW 7.1 you could build an executable that acted as the front panel for an RT system, but that feature does not exist in recent versions. However, a quick search turned up this document with code to approximately duplicate that behavior, perhaps it will work for you?

How can you "enable front panel datalogging?"

In the Labview User Manual, it says that "You can create and read datalog files by enabling front panel datalogging." How do you go about "enabling front panel datalogging?"
Any help would be greatly appreciated.

From a LabVIEW only perspective, you can enable control (front panel) datalogging through the menu Operate>Data Logging->. If you bind a log file to the VIs front panel it will generate a binary file with the state of the controls in it, when you execute Operate>Data Logging>Log... (I could not find a way to execute this Log... by VI server programmatically - Maybe someone else?)
From a LabVIEW DSC perspective you can generate a Logos Remote connection to a tag (e.g. with the HMI Wizard). And when you have enabled that this tag has to be logged, the LabVIEW DSC Engine will store/log the value into the Citadel database.
Hope this helps
Roland
PS:
Not updated however maybe helpful:
80E?OpenDocument>Using Enable Database Access to Retrieve Data from a LabVIEW VI's Log File
Front Panel Data Logging and Retrieval (old Example)

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

How to create a front panel display that lights up with different colours depending on its input signal?

I am doing a project where I have this array which has different voltage outputs for each grid. How do I create a front panel object that lights up with different colours depending on the voltage input or is there already such a pre-built function?
In addition, I wish to display these in an array on screen. Is there any pre-built function for this?

Repulse wrote:
I am doing a project where I have this array which has different voltage outputs for each grid. How do I create a front panel object that lights up with different colours depending on the voltage input or is there already such a pre-built function?
The simplest way would be an intensity graph. It gives you a 2D grid where each grid point is colored according to the value of a 2D array. The Z axis color ramp determines the color.
My second choice would be an array of colorboxes. (They could even be made to look like LEDs (see image, if course you can leave them square too), All you need is a scaling function thap maps voltages into a color ramp lookup table with an 8bit index)
(Using booleans and color property nodes is relatively clumsy. Booleans are meant for two states because the value is boolean. Since array elements can only differ in value, and not in properties, it will not even work. Color boxes have a color data type which is much more appropriate for this case)
LabVIEW Champion . Do more with less code and in less time .

Front Panel values lost upon save

I am just taking my first steps with Labview. I have created a couple of VIs and have managed to get I2C communication happening through a third party DAQ box. The problem I am having is fairly simple, I am trying to save VIs but they are not retaining the values I have entered in the Front Panel.
I have a top level VI and a couple of subVIs that contain lower level functionality for sending I2C messages. The top level VI has a couple of value controls that let me enter device addresses, etc. It also has groups of toggle switches that I am using to set bits that I later combine into bytes of data that I can send.
But whenever I save a VI the front panel settings are defaulting to some other value. I dont understand it, I just want the value box to hold the number I entered. And more importantly in this case I need the array of toggle switches to stay where I set them so when I run it again the same bytes are transmitted. But each time I open the VI, the toggle switches are all greyed out and set to 0.
Is this normal? How do I get controls to retain there values? Is there a design reason they do not?
Thanks for any advice.
Solved!
Go to Solution.

You may also consider initializing these values from a file. There are lots of posts which go into details about how you can do this. This is a much more flexible and maintainable approach then relying on the default value of a control.
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

How statechart can access front panel dynamic input

How can I get the value of a control (as set by the user) on a calling VI Front Panel to evaulate/use within a state Exit while loop in of a called StateChart?

I started with the async statechart example -- contains trigger loop and a statechart loop. Inside the statechart loop there is a Run Statechart. Also in this loop are my inputs to the Statechart. Everything is good so far. As each state is entered, the correct input is obtained. Then I added a PID.vi inside a loop to one of the state action tabs. When that particular state is entered and the PID loop runs, I no longer get updated input values. I've tried to copy and reference the Inputs onto the action tab diagram to no avail.
I've attached my VI and lvsc for some hopeful assistance.
Attachments:
BrewLab.vi ‏86 KB
BrewLab.lvsc ‏496 KB

How to Save & reload front panel position

I would like to save the front panel position into an ini file or registry, so that the next time the program is used, it comes up where the user left it.
With the Invode Method: Front Panel.Run-Time postition.Get positon
I can get all the position data I want:
left-top
state
monitor
However... How do I set the same information at startup?
There's no Front Panel.Run-Time Position.Set position. as far as I can see...
To set position, state and monitor values, it seems I need to first call FP.Open for the state, then FP.Run-Time Position.Centered to select the monitor, and then FP.Run-Time Position.Custom to set the position....
That looks weird and complicated...    Am I missing something here?   Is there a more elegant approach?

NI explains the difference between Property nodes and Invoke nodes as this.
Property nodes access the properties of an object and allow you to read/write those properties.
Invoke nodes perform actions on an application or VI allowing you to get and sometimes set attributes of those actions.
Sometimes there is some overlap between Properties and Methods as you noticed with the "Get Position" method and the "Panel.Position" property. But most of the Methods do not have a similar Property. For instance, there is a Method you can use on a front panel item called "Get Image". This will return image data about the item that will let you save the items current visual appearance to a graphics file. (.bmp, .png, .jpg) There is no equivalent property to do this.
So it really depends on what you are trying to do as to which one you end up using.
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.

How do I store front panel values on LabVIEW RT

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