XControl inside another XControl

[Mikkel]

Hi

I am making a system, where it makes sense to put one or more XControls (XValue) inside another XControl (XCalculation).

I am seeing (at least) the following problems in trying to get this to work:

1. The 'Container State / Run Mode?' is always True in the XValue XControls.

2. The state for the XValue XControl is not saved - the 'Convert State For Save.vi' for this XControl is never called, when inside XCalculation.

I have worked my way around point 1 (by checking the contents of the shortcut menu, which changes when running, ugly!) and I'm starting to work around point 2 by having the XCalculation XControl store the states for the embedded XValues, but before I spend too much time getting this to work, I would like to hear if anyone have seen theese problems, and may have a elegant solution?

It should be mentioned that the project is using LabVIEW 8.0.0, but I am open to using a newer version of LabVIEW, if this solves the above problems.

-Mikkel

Edit: Just tested it - seems like version 8.2.1 and 8.5 do the same as 8.0.0.

[Mikkel]

Ok, nobody answered my post, so I sent the same question to NI support, and here is the response.

-Mikkel

--

Here is what R&D had to say:

1. The 'Container State / Run Mode?' is always True in the XValue

XControls.

Container State/Run Mode? reflects the state of the VI that hosts the

XControl. In this case, because the inner XControl is owned by a Facade VI

which is always in run mode whenever the outer XControl is in use, the

state is always TRUE. One way to cleanly handle this situation is for the

inner XControl to export a property called "Run Mode" which can then be set

by the outer XControl whenever it reacts to Exec State change. The shortcut

menu approach is not reliable, especially if LV changes the way it builds

the shortcut menu in future.

2. The state for the XValue XControl is not saved - the 'Convert State For

Save.vi' for this XControl is never called, when inside XCalculation.

The Convert State For Save is called when the host VI is saved. In this

case, the host VI for the inner XControl is the Facade VI of the outer

XControl. The current architecture of XControls does not save the Facade VI

along with the instance of the XControl due to various reasons (memory

usage, revisioning etc..). This is something we will address in future. No

promises of an immediate fix because this requires a major architecural

change. The short term workaround is as the customer suggested. The outer

XControl need to extract the states of the inner XControl and save it with

it s own state.