Enable / disable a control without a property node

[Aitor Solar]

I have to enable / disable / hide a control. Easy, isn't it? Property node -> visible or disabled.

But the VI is going to be seen in a remote panel, and in RPs (in a net with big latency, to add) property nodes are really (I mean reaaally) slow. I can't use them.

What can I do? The only idea I've had is to use a tab control. Tab 1 has the control, tab 2 has nothing, a change in the tab value is almost inmediate. But this doesn't reproduce a "disabled" behaviour, just invisibility. I'm stuck there. A tab page can be invisible, but then you see what's under the tab control, not what's in another tab page, and that's what I need .

Any ideas, please? I'm running out of neurons...

:headbang:

Thaks a lot,

Aitor

[Mike Ashe]

Quick and dirty: Add a TCP/IP channel between your caller and the remote VIs. Send a VI name (the one in the remote panel) and simple commands consisting of the control name and on/off/diable/enable/etc

Yes, I know you'd probably like to just use the remote panel itself, but you have obviously ran into a limitation, showing that, while really neat, RPs are, in some ways, still not ready for prime time.

Hope this helps, it is not pretty, but simple

[Grampa_of_Oliva_n_Eden]

... but you have obviously ran into a limitation, showing that, while really neat, RPs are, in some ways, still not ready for prime time.

Ditto that!

Aitor,

Go with your tab control idea but on the second tab page, just drop a copy of the control you want to disable that is "pre-disabled".

Ben

[Guillaume Lessard]

Quick and dirty: Add a TCP/IP channel between your caller and the remote VIs. Send a VI name (the one in the remote panel) and simple commands consisting of the control name and on/off/diable/enable/etc

NI has a "Simple TCP Messaging Protocol" set of VIs that help in implementing such a thing with a limited amount of pain. See here.

I've used (and modified) it with much success in my real-time client/server project.

Guillaume Lessard

[Aitor Solar]

Yes, I know you'd probably like to just use the remote panel itself, but you have obviously ran into a limitation, showing that, while really neat, RPs are, in some ways, still not ready for prime time.

I know, I know, in fact there are more things I would change if it was in my hands. But in big projects, you usually inherit some restrictions and, in a late stage, there's no many room for changes . Not to mention a big latency affects TCP/IP too, and (if I have correctly understood what you propose) browser-embedded remote panels are not "seen" by a local LV built-in application, so I would need to launch them directly from the exe, heavily changing the program philosophy...

Go with your tab control idea but on the second tab page, just drop a copy of the control you want to disable that is "pre-disabled".

Yep, that's what I've done. But I'm not sure it's as good as it sounds, because if the control changes state (a numeric control or a ring, for example), the predisabled copy won't change, leading to some confusing visual contradictions. And connecting copy and original control for all posible value changes in several hundreds VIs seems... well... not desirable

It would be great if we could connect two controls as if they would be the same, i.e.: two visual representations in the Front Panel of the same inner control, like two locals of the same terminal in the block diagram.

Anyway, thanks for all your suggestions. I know it's a pretty restricted situation, and not all possible solutions are available.

Saludos,

Aitor

[sunilariell]

I do not know if it directly relates to your situation but we had a similar issue of disabling/making invisible certain elements of the front panel for different users for example administrator, supervisor and operators. In our case we used the dsc module and the issue was resolved using the security settings in the dsc module itself. Prior to discovering this possibility we also ran in circles as the remote front panel instances had big problems.

greetings,

sunilariell