How can I avoid "loading.." window when executable starts

[vivante]

Hi,

I have some applications (executables) made by several VIs and when they start, users see "loading in progress" window which displays VI's names. This is a typical behavior of LabVIEW, that other languages don't have. Is there a setting to hide/disable that window?  

 

Thanks,

 

Claudio

[hooovahh]

This is not typical of a LabVIEW built EXE and I have only ever seen it in programs that have issues finding some component of the EXE that is external like .Net assemblies, DLL calls, or dynamic VI calls.  I'd suggest building an EXE with debugging turned on, and then when it loads it might give a reason like expected loading location of a component was different from the expected location.

[mje]

If you're loading VIs dynamically with Open VI Reference, perhaps you need the 0x20 flag?

[Tim_S]

This will also happen if your executable uses a packed library. I've not found a way around that other than creating a splash screen that dynamically loads the section of code using the packed library.

[chris754]

I've encountered this with an exe loading an llb. What was happening was the llb needed to include an NI VI. When it wasn't included labview would search for it and eventually found it, but then this window appears, once you include it, it goes away. This often happens when the EXE is built with "remove unused members of project libraries" checked. For instance, in my case, the VISA commands were missing and needed to be found. So I would look for instance like this or try unchecking the box and see if that does you any good.

[MikaelH]

I've noticed this in later version of LabVIEW, and never has the problem before.

The same application, just converted to LV2012SP1 for example.

[vivante]

My application loads VIs saved in some packed libraries. It doesn't load dll, apart from lvanlys.dll which is in the same directory of executable file. 

In my opinion, if LV searches for them, I understand that it can take a while to start the execution.

I wonder if that window could be optional, so that final user doesn't see the loading process. 

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

My application loads VIs saved in some packed libraries. It doesn't load dll, apart from lvanlys.dll which is in the same directory of executable file. 

In my opinion, if LV searches for them, I understand that it can take a while to start the execution.

I wonder if that window could be optional, so that final user doesn't see the loading process. 

 

That window shows automatically after a certain amount of time when the VI hierarchy hasn't been fully loaded yet. It has done so since very early versions of LabVIEW and there is no INI file setting that I'm aware of to disable it. Most likely something has caused the load to take longer when the program was ported to a newer LabVIEW version by Mikael.

 

The way to avoid it is to create your own splash screen with very small hierarchy that then loads the actual Main VI dynamically using VI Server Run method. That way there is a quick screen that avoids the LabVIEW search dialog and then you can take as much time for loading your actual main hierarchy as you want.

[vivante]

Thanks guys,

creating a small app with a splash page that loads dynamically the main application is not feasible in my case so I was wondering if there is somewhere the opportunity to set the "timeout" that controls the visualization of "Loading" dialog. In any case, you have to be agree with me that the idea of a fixed timeout after that  a "loading" dialog is displayed is somehow odd and typical of LabVIEW. I have never seen something like that in programs made in other programming languages.

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

 I have never seen something like that in programs made in other programming languages.

 

And I have never seen a programming environment that resembles LabVIEW in just about anything  , and I don't really consider this a bad thing.

 

I'm usually more concerned about starting up an application that seems to do nothing for a very long time, only to find out that there will be eventually 10 copies of it started up after minutes of inactivity. Not to speak about the thoughts of if it may install all kinds of nasty things in the background while seemingly doing nothing. Compared to that a search dialog is a minor inconvenience and easily worked around with your own splash screen.