jlada

Chris; I'll give that a try, thanks. Very nice graphics by the way. How did you create thos buttons? Jeff

Thanks for the reply Michael; The problem is that the surrounding buttons are also rectangular imports. When the center buttons are pushed to the back, they are then overlapped by the surrounding ones. The only way i can figure to do this would be to be able to import non-rectangular images. It must be possible somehow because the oval buttons from NI don't have a rectangular footprint. Jeff

In the same vein, is it possible to replace the visual components of a control with with a non-rectangular import? I have recently created a circular joystick made up of eight boolean pushbuttons in a ring with a hollow center. The intent was to create two half-round booleans to fill the center, but because I cannot seem to import anything but rectangular bit maps, there is always an overlap problem in the center. I have attached a image showing the cluster. As can be seen, I have resorted to using two oval buttons instead - not what I had hoped for. Jeff

Thanks for the 7.0 VI Kahlid. I've tried this, or variations of it, without much success. You do have a couple of minor differences. Is there a reason that your tab control is inside the event case? I'll have to give that a try. As to the NI policy; there is nothing in Kahlid's code which is specific to revision 7.1, so why should it not have run in 7.0? This is a policy designed to force programmers to pay the costs of upgrade whether it be necessary or not. I don't mind paying for improvements in software if I'm going to use them - the step up to 7.0 was worth the expense. The arm-twisting tactics of being forced to pay for incremental software improvements, which only the most hard-core of users may be able to even appreciate does not endear me to any software company. I have the same pet peeve with Allen Bradley. I recently had to part with a bundle in software upgrade costs just because they came out with a new I/O card. But, I digress... Jeff

Thanks for the VI Kahlid, but it won't open in 7.0. If you could supply the same thing in 7.0 I'd like to take a look. For the record, I think this is bad policy on NI's part.

I'm having a problem capturing keyboard events with an event structure. The client wants F keys to switch a tab control. I want to use an event structure but am having trouble with this approach. Whatever I seem to do, I get peculiar results - the VI locks up or whatever. I am defining cases at the 'This VI' level and I seem to get the best results when there is a case defined for every possibility. It still isn't well behaved and I don't think this arrangement should be necessary. I've been sifting through the manual and have yet to figure out when it is necessary to register events. I have an alternate plan of using keyboard VIs found at the NI site but, I would rather use the event structure if possible. Anybody willing to give a short lesson? Thanks, Jeff

Michael; I cannot present any screens yet as the system hasn't yet been commissioned. The image I'm describing is from the end user's hand drawn graph. Their people ran a few manual tests and recorded the data by hand just to verify that it was doable. I met with my client today who described how he thought the data should be tested. The idea is to run it through a filter first to remove the noise and then through a differentiation function to identify the bends (turns out there are two 'doglegs' per test, not one). I guess the only remaining question is which filter to use. Thanks for the response though. Jeff :thumbup:

The client wants to capture flow rate over pressure data for a pump under test. Pressure is increased steadily over time. At some point the pump's relief valve opens up and the flow rate increases proportionately. The resulting graph shows an abrupt 'dogleg' bend of approximately 20 degrees resulting from the increased flow. The 'legs' of data both before and after are relatively straight lines. The problem is to identify the point at which this dogleg occurs. Any ideas? Thanks, Jeff

Thanks Michael; I did find that set of utilities after posting the question. In experimenting I found that yes, the window will popup over all other LabView windows but will not popup over any other applications running. This seems to be exactly what happens with your vi as well. I compiled your vi to an executable and tried it again, in case that changed the behaviour - but it didn't. I'm running Windows 2000 if that has any bearing. Jeff

I have written a time tracking application (Application Builder in LV 7.0) which works well enough. It has a (configurable) 'reminder' function which pops up a small window, asking whether to continue tracking the task or not. The popup counts itself down to zero and closes if no response is given. This is in case I leave the computer and forget to shut off the tracking manually. The problem is that I cannot ensure that the popup window will open up on top of whatever program it is that I may be working on. In this case, it times out and shuts off the tracking function in the main app - behind whatever I'm working on. I'm using an Open VI Reference and a Property Node (w/ FP.Open & FP.IsFrontMost True) to try and open it on top. The IsFrontMost property notes that "Setting this property will wait until the user interface is not busy". The meaning of this note isn't clear to me. I have tried, unsuccessfully, to have the popup itself continuously calling the IsFrontMost property on it's own reference, but either I'm calling it incorrectly or it doesn't work that way. I'm going to explore the 'events' functions in order that the main app doesn't bother to call the popup if there's any activity on the computer, but I would still like to be able to place the popup on top. Any help is appreciated. Thanks, Jeff :headbang:

Thanks pblaze but, you missed my point completely. The connector for your vi isn't connected to anything. How would you call this vi from another, modify the array, and then use the modified array in another vi without duplicating the original input array? In fact, you could have accomplished the same thing in your vi with just one local variable, not two...

To my knowledge, local variables cannot be assigned as inputs or outputs to the 'icon connector' (terminals). This means that I have to duplicate the entire cluter array on the front panel, assign the duplicate the opposite case (either control or indicator), assign it to a terminal, and then hide it so that it doesn't clutter up the front panel. This works but, is a pretty cumbersome procedure. Is there a better way? Jeff

In the same vein, Consolitech Corp sells stand alone OPC and ActiveX servers for PLC communications. I don't doubt that the OPC servers ($$) would work with Labview but, would the (less expensive) ActiveX servers be difficult to integrate into a Labview app? http://www.consolitech.com/ Jeff

Having a cluster array, I want to input it into a function, modify some data in the array and then output the modified array. Is there any way I can do this without duplicating the array on the front panel - having the duplicate input array passing information to the output array? So far all I've done is to hide the indicator (input array) on the front panel... Jeff

Thanks to Michael for the new questions and support section. I'm testing out datasockets to an A-B RSLinx OPC server. At the moment, it appears as though each register in the PLC has to be accessed with an individual URL. Is it possible to access a group of (sequential) registers with a single URL? I suspect i may have to cluster a bunch of individuals together. Jeff :?: