martin@aerodynamics

File Name: Vi, Vit, Ctl Icon and Description Editor

File Submitter: LAVA 1.0 Content

File Submitted: 02 Jul 2009

File Category: LabVIEW IDE

LabVIEW Version: 8.0

File Version: 1.7.0

License Type: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0

Potentially make this file available on the VI Package Network?: Undecided

RUAG ICON Editor v1.7 - 14.11.2006

Copyright © 2006, Martin Hasler

----------------------

This is the currend RUAG ICON Editor for LabVIEW 8.x

Have a lot of Fun with LabVIEW

Author:

Martin.Hasler

--see readme file for contact information

Description:

Copy the Files Icon.llb and RUAG-Icon-Editor.vi and description.txt into your LabVIEW 8.x/project/ Directory

If you start LabVIEW the next Time, the RUAG-ICON-Editor appears under LabVIEW Tools (Werkzeuge).

With the RUAG Icon Editor you can create or modify ICONS from Vi, Vit, Ctl.

The information about the ICON will be saved into the VI-Documentation.

=> First: Click "Load Directory"

=> Click "Tree-Control" to choose your VI to modify.

=> You can modify the colorsets by Editing the Color_Set.vi in the Icon.llb. Do not forget to click on: Save current values as default.

=> DO NOT USE THE FOLLOWING SINGN IN THE TITLE OR BODY!! §

=> Dobble -click your VI in the "Tree-Control" to open the VI.

Version History:

V1.0 The Original Version 1 was made by Pascal Helfenstein phelfens@fhzh.ch

V1.1 You can reload the old Icon.

You can Choose Color Sets.

Help button.

Changes will be saved into the VI documentation.

V1.2 You can Edit Icons in llb

You can Edit Icons from *.vit, *.ctl, *.vi

V1.3 The Pictures (New Icon, Old Icon etc.) are bigger

Bug Fixed that you have to press "Write Icon" twice for Vi's which are in a Project.

V1.4 More Documentation, (BD & FP) "Straighten the Code"

V1.5 "Edit Documentation" included

V1.5.1 Rearranged all Buttons. If you edit the Icon the first time, text=black, Title and Body= white

V1.5.2 If you edit a ICON the first time, a line feed will be added to the existing documentation.

V1.6 If the entered ICON text is too long it will be cutted automatically.

Automatically add and remove Tags < B > and </B> to the Description. (Preview included)

Rearranged Buttons

V1.7 An Indicator is blinking and the cursor is set to busy while the tree control is updated

Bug solved with old tree control paths

Automatically generate a Documentation with Username, Date, CTL Inputs and Outputs if they are connected to the connector pane (including their description)

Open Frontpannel and Blockdiagramm by right-click to the Tree CTL or LLB-Content

Click here to download this file

...One pitcher of beer at the Gingerman during NI Week to whoever finds the solution to this challenge first (I figure we might as well keep this trend going! :thumbup: ).

...

Now everyone can post his

I get Error8 from App Builder, but only if Subversion (SVN) & Tortoise are installed....

Hello I had similar problems,

As written in the Error Message, you just have to change the NI-488 DMA Hardware ...

No in fact I think you should try following:

Open your Vi and, press Ctrl + Shift and press the Run Button from your Vi. Save the Vi.

Do the same with all dynamic called vi's.

Try to build your app...

Note:

In the Build Specification window, you have an option (Vorschau in german LabVIEW) If you press "Vorschau erzeugen" or whatever it is in your LabVIEW language version. Then you get eather a detailed error description, or you get a preview of your Exe including used dll etc.

....is there a way to run this device on a totally different thread to the user interface to take away the noticable delay & still have the data logger run away happily?

In LabVIEW you can make as many parallel loops as you like...

:question: how could i delete this 2nd post?

Just delete the post (upgrade to premium member....)

As a follow-up to this, here's an example of a 32-bit (RGBa) PNG image:

...But the picture control appears to be thresholding it to a single transparency bit.

This behaviour is described in the Vi description of the used vi ...

The Read png File.vi has an Input for Transparency...

So you can select the level of transparency- and that's just on/off ...

I will replace the color box of my Icon editor with a new customized colorbox which allows only to choose from the possible 221 colors...

Customized Color Box....

(will be implemented into my Icon editor soon...

Yes icons in itself have no transparency. The tranparency is done by a mask and this mask is in LabVIEW automatically computed from the BW icon. With a resource editor that understands LabVIEW's file format (in older LabVIEW versions you could simply use a Macinbtosh resource editor on the Mac version of LabVIEW) you could manipulate that mask to use something different than the automatically computed mask.

Actually the transparency is made by "overlaying" all 3 Icons (not just BW) ("256" Colors, 16 Colors, and BW)...

So if on the border of the overlayed Icon is white, then will this part showed as transparent....

In the default LabVIEW ICON Editor, it is not possible to make a complete transparent Vi.

But if you set the ICON programatically, you can make invisible Vi's...

(the invisible Vi's ar only shown in the Vi- Hirarchie, so you can wind up somebody )

I've been scrubbing over the color picker in the LabVIEW Icon Editor and have noticed something. When you use the color picker in the Icon Editor, even though your monitor displays a ton of colors, LabVIEW restricts what you can pick.

If we calculate all the possible RGB colors we can select from these, we get 6³ = 216. Adding in the grey shades that weren't already duplicated in that calculation, we get a total color palette of 216 + 5 = 221 valid LabVIEW VI Icon colors.

This raises a question: Are these all the colors we can use in LabVIEW VI icons, or are there 34 more that I'm missing? The motivation for the question is that I'm trying to dither some images for use in LabVIEW icons using an external tool, and I want to do it right (LabVIEW's color substition is rather lacking).

I made a test with all possible ICON colors (by programmatically generate and read ICONS)

=> there are "just" 221 colors

I will replace the color box of my Icon editor with a new customized colorbox which allows only to choose from the possible 221 colors...

Ok I left the 8 bit...

Anyway if you convert transparent to a 8 bit pixmap, then it's 0... (but that's also white...)

Now we allready have that alpha channel! (does anyone know the color code of transparent) is that just plain 0x00?

Ton

Transparent is: x1000000

Thank you, martin

I'll try to find information about the "property node"...

And I'll try to see whether there's such courses here.

Here you can see a way to make a property node for a control:

(soory I have the german LabVIEW Version)

1. right click on the control/indicator

2. select create => Property Node => (select the desired Property) => Visible

3. right click on the createt Property Node, select change all to write

4. now you can change from visible /invisible by adding a bool constant or control to the Property node input...

everything clear?

....i haven't tested much with it, but the first thing I see is an ugly drop shadow... how do i get rid of that business?

It only appears at edit time. If you run the VI the shadow goes away.

The "ugly shadow" is only shown, when you just move an object over another object...

In your example the Select Part: Control is not placed in the tab control, it's placed over the tab control...

So if you wanne get rid of that shadow, you have to pick your control with the mouse, and move the control a little bit- then the shadow disapears.

:beer:

...Is there a way to disable other parts on the front panel first and enable them again after user press "Start" button?

Hello there is a way to do that, you can siple set Controls and Indicators Visible (or invisible) with a property node...

But if you don't know that then you are probably new to LabVIEW...

However I would suggest that you first attend a LabVIEW Basic 1 (& 2) Course at your local NI Office...

Afther that course you will know a lot of the Basic things with LabVIEW.

:beer:

...In all seriousness, though, did anyone catch Jeff K's presentation at NI Week 2006 about his proposed asynchronous wire (aka "Jeff's Wire") and the transtemporal three-dimensional stack of block diagrams that would accompany it? That's a vision of LV that will really mess with your head for a bit.

I saw the presentation...

As far as I know do the asynchronous wire exist since LabVIEW 8.0 but they are still hidden for the community ...

When can we see an example of "Jeff's Wire"?

(At least a picture of the BD)

However- I look forward ro see an exaple of the 3d blockdiagram ...

Here's a couple INI entries:

XNodeWizardMode=True (try right clicking on an XNode now!)

XTraceXNode=True (um, I forget what this did actually...it's been a couple weeks)

ExternalNodesEnabled=True

I remembered from my limited investigations (yes that kind of thing is legal here although using the knowledge to circumvent such protection is not) into the 8.0 license manager that there were two explicit areas that seemed to require a license in order to run. One was the scripting feature that we all know about and the other was something like XNode Development....

Rolf Kalbermatter

Hello Adam and Rolf

Thanks for the ini keys- Now I konw how to get some of them by myself...

I just figured out those for LabVIEW 7.1 (but you probably already know them)

ExternalNodesEnabled=True

ExternalNodeDebugging=True

But be careful, you will create insane objets... so save your work bevore using them...

Anyway it's nice to see that a timed loop consists of xnodes...

So just enable both keys, restart LabVIEW 7.1 and place a timed loop...

Give yourself the gift that keeps on giving, all year long...

a LAVA :thumbup:

I already have it....

I would not try it with LV 8 because ti does use project and natively support apps on more than one target.

The above note about renaming is useful for Pre-LV 8 when you want to watch the RT and Windows at the same time. I have only used in once but it did beat using two laptops. THis was originally posted by DR RT (someone at NI) years ago when there used to be an RT forum.

Ben

I think I will not try with two copies of LabVIEW since I can drink a coffee during every build...

When using your Servo motion Controller, did you had to use also an Universal Motion Interface (UMI)

Do yo have a documentation describing the interconnection of your system

(The NI Web documentation is very poor concerning the axis controller board I/O

I have used a UMI.

The connection is quite simple,

2 wires +/-10V Analog Output

6 wires Encoder,

Limit Switches

Inhibit

Here is the Documentation:

NI 7350 User Manual

http://digital.ni.com/manuals.nsf/websearc...6257180007233A9

Universal Motion Interface (UMI) Accessory User Guide

http://digital.ni.com/manuals.nsf/websearc...62567BD0061DDAC

Dear Martin

Q1) Do you have any documentation about your hardware architecture

Q2) Do you have to use a UMI board?

Best regards

Thibaut

Q1: http://digital.ni.com/worldwide/switz.nsf/...p;node=168640_d

Q2: Yes

Does anyone know of an easy method to get some sort of reference to a VI's icon? I'm not talking about the generic "I'm-a-VI" one you see from your OS, but the actual icon you create when you make your VIs. I know that I can get it from the VI's binary, but I'd much prefer loading it from a VI reference and displaying it in a picture control or the like, but I can't find an appropriate property...

PS: actually, it'd be kind of cool if someone wrote some code that gets the subVI's icon from its' binary for the Code Repository...

In my ICON Editor is this function also used (the Vi is already in the Code Repository)

Vi, Vit, Ctl Icon and Description Editor

What if you run two copies of LabVIEW?

Ton

Never tried...

Do you have to install LabVIEW twice for that or how sould that work??

hmmm ... just to be honest: business as usual = show a little smile on things that have improved and rant as loud as you can if something does not meet your expectations. the reason why I started this thread was (as described in the subtitle ) that I felt that I should not just rant but mention the things that have improved from 8.0.1 to 8.20

OK back to things that have improved:

Overall I think the new LabVIEW 8.2 works fine, and there are a lot of improvements- specially on LabVIEW RT- side

LabVIEW RT- Remote debugging of executables => Excellent!

LabVIEW RT- overal handling => Excellent!

LabVIEW RT- Aborting running vi's on RT-Target, reboot of RT-Target in LabVIEW 8.2 works perfetct...

LabVIEW RT- Shared variable very easy and flexible to use (+extended datatypes) => Excellent!

LabVIEW RT- the new RT FIFO- => Excellent! (My wish has become true :worship: )

LabVIEW RT- Building and distributing applications => even much easyer than bevore

=> there is only one thing I miss: While building a new RT- application I can not debug another application on a RT-Target, because the application Builder Window is "frontmonst"

But if you have only smal apps. you don't need that.

I just wanted to share my excitement on the first stepping sotne of Certification!

Congratulation!!

I hope that you are also interested to get rid of the D (CLAD=> CLA) :thumbup:

Ok first you have to get rid of the A (CLAD=> CLD)

We have publically visible bug reports all over the ni.com DevZone, so why would it bother us if LAVA has similar lists? Yeah, some of them are embarrassing, but as long as there are threads like this one ("things that have improved") to remind everyone that it's not all bad news then the bug lists do more help than harm.

Hello Aristos

First: LabVIEW is great! and I really like programming with LabVIEW.

But I lost a lot of time so I was a bit in a bad mood.

Usualy I report all "strange things" directly to NI (Switzerland). Since I have SSP it's an easy and fast way. I did't knew bevore, that you have a bug-list on the web. But it would be great if there would be a FULL LIST on the web.

Example: As you know "I" found out two bugs with the Timed Loop.

As I taked to local NI they told me that one bug (big priority numbers) is already reported. But i was not able to find this message on your support site.

The second bug (LabVIEW hangs after a restart of a timed loop which was aborted with the Stop Timed Loop.vi) was "new".

So how shold other people know about that?

Why do we always have to ask for support for known issues?

(I think our local NI support is really GREAT so I really enjoy asking them since we were on the same year at the same university!!)

But a "complete" list could help us a lot...

Well put - bug lists are great for everyone: they show that we know that NI's aware of an issue, and NI benefits from hearing about the issues from real users - it's a win-win! You should never be concerned about reporting what you think might be a bug:

* Someone will help you to understand that it isn't a bug, and you're just doing it wrong

* It will be recognised as a bug by NI and fixed in a future release

* It will be recognised as a bug by NI and they (or someone else) will help you with a work-around

Usualy I'm proud to find out a bug!

And your point are also what I think in general.

In LabVIEW 8 I found a memory leak with DataSocket. I reported this error (directly to NI Austin), and they told me that it's already in the readme.txt from LabVIEW...

But the readme is the LabVIEW Readme from 8.20 and not 8.0!!!

So how should a LabVIEW 8.0 know about things like that (since LabVIEW 8.20 was not very old at that time)?

what does the debug file say after a restart? or doesn't it show up? If not look at it from MAX (or locate it with FTP).

The debug File says nothing

Getting a "support Number" (service request number) is only part of the game. As of about 3 months ago ALL of the AE (application Engineers) are required to post the CAR (corrective action report) for all publicly posted bugs. Contact your AE again and request the CAR number.

Unfortunately the new rule has not sunk-in for many of the AE's. I get the feelling they are doing a noble act be sparing R&D from the distraction.

Again, posting to the bug list I listed earlier will get the bug into the mill and will result in your ability to track its progress.

Ben

Hy I asked the guy fom NI told me, that I don't need this CAR# and I don't need to post it there ("NI-Bug Forum")!?!?!?

They probaly don't like that we are able to see all bugs on a forum in the internet