Trigger Event from External Application

[dremas]

Hi all,

Any thoughts on the simplest way to trigger a LabVIEW event using an external script in Windows? I want to be able to poke my LabVIEW application and kick off a predefined code block. No need to pass any information/message.

 

I'm looking for something very passive, unlike, for example, a listening TCP socket.

 

Thanks!

[ShaunR]

Hi all,

Any thoughts on the simplest way to trigger a LabVIEW event using an external script in Windows? I want to be able to poke my LabVIEW application and kick off a predefined code block. No need to pass any information/message.

 

I'm looking for something very passive, unlike, for example, a listening TCP socket.

 

Thanks!

Simplest way is to use vbscript to press buttons on the FP.

[dremas]

Thanks Shaun, that works perfectly and is quite flexible!

[SDietrich]

Even simpler:

 

Create a file or modify a file. Your LabVIEW program can check regularly on the 'last modified' timestamp. But as always, you have to know what you are doing. E.g. a FAT32-filesystem has a timestamp resolution of 2 seconds(!).

 

Sending simulated keystrokes is fine until Windows or some other application decides pop up some window. If you are lucky, you just miss an event (or rather all events from there on that is). If you are unlucky, you spend the night reinstalling your system because your script accidentally hit the OK button in a box asking to format your harddisk...

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

Hi all,

Any thoughts on the simplest way to trigger a LabVIEW event using an external script in Windows? I want to be able to poke my LabVIEW application and kick off a predefined code block. No need to pass any information/message.

 

I'm looking for something very passive, unlike, for example, a listening TCP socket.

 

Thanks!

 

As SDietrich mentioned, the pressing of a button can be intercepted by pop-up windows of any other application in the system. A slightly more involved possibility which still would work from vbscript would be to enable the ActiveX interface of the LabVIEW application and then control the application explicitly by invoking ActiveX methods of the LabVIEW server.

 

This post is part of a thread that discusses the possibility to control a LabVIEW VI from vbscript and the post contains even a small sample.