jcarmody

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- Better cooling methodology

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We have a few PXI-chassis-based ATEs and we have serious issues with cooling such that we often have to move test operations to cooler rooms in the summer. I'm not responsible for any of these operations, so my comments are only heresay (heresy ), but one of our Sr. Test Engineer has had several discussions with NI AEs regarding this.

YMMV, but I'm interested in what others say.

I must admit you have reminded me I was going to look at extending that example code into a full logger tool.

That's what I was thinking could be done, after rereading the OP and then the title of JG's example but before clicking "Post".

Have you considered using Radio Buttons?

jgcode made an Error Logger as part of last year's NI Example Code Contest.

I read this KB article just last week because I'm playing with adapting a custom probe to any data type.

Maybe I should just rewrite it... Yeah... Thats it. A rewrite... How hard can it be to devine the undocumented requirements from this steaming pile of...

You may have already read this from Joel on Software - Things You Should Never Do, Part I It's an urge you must resist.

This'll <edit>NOT</edit> work.

EDIT: see lordsathish's post.

You could also make a picture out of 1x1 free labels as pixels...

...or, I could draw in a Free Label using ASCII Art.

My opinion: 1984 > Animal Farm > Brave New World

I haven't read Catch-22.

[...] Both are depressing in that I see them as very real futures (at least in the United States...).

Interesting, because (I believe that) all three were written in Great Britian. The human condition is universal, I guess.

I didn't realize you were referring to a running VI. I think you'll be out of luck either way because you can't do any kind of scripting on a block diagram that is running.

Pretty good point, but not completely correct. I just tested your VI with my target VI running and found that the Delete and Paste methods don't work. We are able to update Free Labels when their VIs are running. I guess I'll just have to limit myself to things I can represent in text.

One avenue I can explore is to float VIs over the block diagram.

It all started in an NI LabVIEW API Community question about working with probes (here), when I was working on my State Machine Follower RCF plugin. This activity was in my mind when I read an Idea Exchange suggestion that we be able to "View probe values within the code during execution".

So, I began writing stuff to insert a Free Label into the block diagram near a wire and have a custom probe send a notification that would update the decoration when the value is updated. I soon realized that I'd need a different probe VI for every data type. and it was suggested that some data types would be difficult to represent in a Free Label so I thought I could use a picture of the probe's control instead. This is why I'm trying to change the picture in a decoration. I want the probe to notify with a picture of its control so a background process can update the decoration on the probed VI's BD.

I don't think I can use Darin's suggestion because I won't be able to inline a SubVI while the VI is running, and that's also why I can't use a Picture constant. Darren's first suggestion and David_L's VI seem to be the way I'll need to go.

[...] I then place this SubVI on the target BD and inline it. Easy peasey. Attempts to paste images conventionally result in bitmaps.

I'm going to guess that this won't work for what I want to do; I need to be able to change the image while the VI is running and I can't imagine LabVIEW letting me inline a SubVI unless it's stopped. What do you think? I'd still like to see your code.

Sorry, I didn't mean to offend.

No offense was taken I always appreciate injections of humor into these threads. I looked at the video on my phone - Ren & Stimpy... very nice.

I can't see Youtube at work, but I'm thinking that you've interpreted my request for help to mean I need help shaving the Yak. I have many years of experience shaving Yaks and can handle it quite well once I have my preliminaries completed. I need help changing the picture in a BD Decoration using scripting.

I'll look at the video tonight; It may inspire me. At least you didn't use lmgtfy to answer my question.

This is a Block Diagram Decoration with a picture of an unshaved Yak. It is a Yak that I very much want to shave...

I've posted a question in the NI LabVIEW API Community asking for help:

I'm looking for a way to programmatically set the image of a decoration on the Block Diagram. If I have an image on the (Windows) clipboard, I can paste it on a Block Diagram and the Class Name of the object is 'Decoration'. Is there a property or method I can use to set the image of a decoration?

Can you help?

Thanks,

Jim

I half expected that my picture would help you!

I prefer the smaller ones so much that I wrote a JKI RCF plugin to convert them.

You could also create an INI file. [...]

In this context, config = INI.

I do this using a config file, also. I use the OpenG config file VIs to read the file based on a type-defined cluster and I put it into a Shift Register for access anywhere in the same program.

Draw us a picture, please. It'll be worth a thousand words.

Here's a demo VI with instructions to show what this plugin does.

I'd also suggest that the OpenG Variant Configuration VIs are easier to use than the native ones. You can make a type-defined cluster and it's much easier to manage updates to your ini file.

I tried making this work in older versions, but the Attach Probe wire method didn't work in 8.2 or 8.6. If you believe I'm mistaken I'll take another crack at it.