jcarmody

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.

How about this? It may require more testing to eliminate things like String controls that contain the search text, but that's easy enough (depending on the application).

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.

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

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'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.

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: 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.

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.

Name: State Machine Follower Submitter: jcarmody Submitted: 19 Oct 2011 File Updated: 20 Oct 2011 Category: JKI Right-Click Framework Plugins LabVIEW Version: 2009 License Type: Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 This JKI RCF Plugin sets the Visible Frame property of a Case Structure while the owning VI is running. Use it to follow the execution through the cases in your string-based State Machine/Sequencer when Execution Highlighting isn't fast enough (and, it's never fast enough). The use-case I wrote this to improve is setting a Breakpoint on the Error wire coming out of the main Case Structure and probing the Case Selector terminal so I can float-probe wires during execution. The problem with this is that I had to manually select the current frame every time. This is boring, so I developed this plugin to automatically set the Visible Frame to the case most recently executed. Use - Select the String wire connected to the main Case Structure's selector terminal, invoke the JKI RCF and select StateFollower. Special thanks to - AristosQueue, for his help over here. LabVIEW versions - tested in 2009 & 2011 - it should work in 2010 as well Installation - use VIPM to install the VI Package License - Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution (Really, do whatever you want. I don't care.) Click here to download this file