Get VI ref from subpanel

[eberaud]

Is there a way to retrieve the reference of the VI inserted in a subpanel? I'm writing a code that takes a "parent" VI ref, and then scan through all its splitters, panes, and subpanels, and now I'd like to retrieve some infos from the VIs loaded inside the subpanels...

 

Cheers

[hooovahh]

Starting I think in 2012 there is a property called Inserted VI which returns the reference of the VI in the subpanel.  Otherwise you need to keep track of it your self some how.

[eberaud]

Argh I'm using 2011!

 

Thanks!

[hooovahh]

Time to upgrade? 2015 is pretty awesome.  Heck 2012 is pretty good (conditional, concatenating tunnels)

[eberaud]

I think the plan is to move to 2014 SP1. The SP1 of any version feels more stable that the initial release (at least psychologically, even if not proven by facts).

[Yair]

If you're upgrading, I would consider 2015 seriously. The changes to the make space feature and context menu plugins are worth it.

[eberaud]

Thanks for the tip, I really appreciate it. For some reasons, since my early days as a LV developer I've had the impression that people wait for the SP1 because of potential bugs when a new version is released. But maybe that is not justified anymore?

[LogMAN]

I still think it is justified to wait for SPs and do tests before switching, however the last two releases were focused on fixing bugs and improving stability (2014 + 2015 afaik), with less "big" features like the Actor Framework in 2013. Compared to 2011, 2015 seems to be much more stable at least on my machine (working with a classes is no longer a reason to perform suicide, even with properties ).
 
Being in the club 2011 too, we'll finally move to 2015 by the end of this year (and upgrade to SP1 once it is available). The performance improvement and, as Yair pointed out, the new edit-time features are worth it.

[Yair]

 I've had the impression that people wait for the SP1

 

Some people wait for the SP releases. It's certainly less likely to have new bugs, as they rarely have new features, but .0 releases are not exactly hotbeds of crashes automatically. I know I used 7.0 for years and was perfectly happy with it. I suppose depends on how sensitive you are to perceived potential bugs, but I don't have any actual data about the stability of .0 and .1 releases. I actually generally try to avoid upgrading if possible, because it's a hassle and can make project management a pain.

[eberaud]

By the time we really make the decision to upgrade and we find time for it, 2015 SP1 might be out there anyway 

[smithd]

Its worth pointing out that the property you're referring to seems to return a single VI reference for any subpanel (at least in 2013). That is, if you read it you'll always see 0x00111111 even if you just passed in 0x00222222 or changed it to 0x00333333. This is fine-- you can still figure out which VI was inserted, but don't close that reference.

[hooovahh]

Its worth pointing out that the property you're referring to seems to return a single VI reference for any subpanel (at least in 2013). That is, if you read it you'll always see 0x00111111 even if you just passed in 0x00222222 or changed it to 0x00333333. This is fine-- you can still figure out which VI was inserted, but don't close that reference.

Honestly I think I'd prefer the function work in this manner rather than opening a new reference to the VI that I then need to close each time.  I wouldn't expect a function like this to open a new reference, but rather just return the reference it already has, similar to other property nodes that return a reference to something already open.

[smithd]

its kind of hard to describe so I'm posting a picture:

 

So the refnums are in fact different for all of the wires, but if you close the reference you get out of the inserted VI property, bad things happen. In this case, for example, the first VI never shows up past the first run and if you try to open that VI's front panel it points you at the subpanel, even when the main VI is stopped. Weird stuff.

[JackDunaway]

Thanks for the tip, I really appreciate it. For some reasons, since my early days as a LV developer I've had the impression that people wait for the SP1 because of potential bugs when a new version is released. But maybe that is not justified anymore?

 

Nah, go for it. Think of LV2015 as LabVIEW 8.6.1 SP13.