Programmatically Turn AutoTool On/Off

[paul_cardinale]

Is it possible to programmatically turn Automatic Tool Selection on & off?

I found a ToolNumber property, but it always throws error 1028 (LabVIEW: (Hex 0x404) Attribute selector is invalid).  I have no idea what that means.

[Darren]

I don't know of a way to do this. The closest thing would be to show the Tools palette with the 'Tools Palette Open' property, then use OS calls (like user32.dll on Windows) to simulate a mouse click to turn the auto tool on/off.

[paul_cardinale]

Thanks for the reply.  Close, but that will just toggle the state.  I need to set the state to ON.

[hooovahh]

What is your use case that you need to turn it on and off?  I suspect you already know but there is an INI key that turns it on and off but is only read on LabVIEW start.

[paul_cardinale]

I'm working on a test executive framework (for both test execution and development).  The test step editor places the block diagram of a test wrapper VI in a SubPanel.  It works fine, but when the framework is running, within that panel, you can't change tools by tabbing.  I want the test executive to turn on AutoTool selection so the test engineers using it won't have to.

Edited January 31, 2020 by paul_cardinale

[Aristos Queue]

I looked at App:Tool Number... it's code has never been implemented (which is why it is still private, presumably). Someone put it in as a placeholder and then decided they didn't actually need it. Should have been backed out but wasn't.

I don't know of any programmatic control over the autotool. I'm not saying it doesn't exist, but I don't know of any.
Can you fire a shift+tab key at LabVIEW using OS calls before the framework starts running?

Edited February 4, 2020 by Aristos Queue

[paul_cardinale]

I want to turn AutoTool on.  Shift-Tab toggles AutoTool on/off.  That would be useful if there is a way to check the state of AutoTool.

[Aristos Queue]

8 hours ago, paul_cardinale said:

I want to turn AutoTool on.  Shift-Tab toggles AutoTool on/off.  That would be useful if there is a way to check the state of AutoTool.

None that I could find. That kind of meta control of the LabVIEW IDE is not something we’ve ever focused on as a feature. 

[paul_cardinale]

Ok.  As an alternative, is there a way to get the tab key to function as a tool selector on a block diagram that's in a SubPanel of a running VI?

(It seems that the VI that owns the SubPanel is swallowing the keystrokes).

[Aristos Queue]

7 hours ago, paul_cardinale said:

Ok.  As an alternative, is there a way to get the tab key to function as a tool selector on a block diagram that's in a SubPanel of a running VI?

(It seems that the VI that owns the SubPanel is swallowing the keystrokes).

Probably not. LabVIEW gets out of the way of the running front panel for you to have full control of your app, but there's never been a reason for us to do that for a block diagram. I doubt there's a way to achieve what you're trying to do in LV as it stands.