Programatic control of the Context Help Window

[PJM_labview]

Does anyone knows if there is any way (involving scripting or not) to programatically get the context window to display a specific VI documentation?

For instance I am looking for something that would take a VI path and will get the help windows to display this VI documentation.

Thanks

PJM

[Wire Warrior]

I know you can use a property node to update a VI's description block, the content of which does appear in the Context Help window. You could simply read the help file into the program and pass it to description. That would be the only way I can think of to do it. Though could to think of it you can add help file links to a VI using the help tag and help path windows on the VI documentation window. These can also be updated via a property node programmatically.

I hope this helps.

Jason

[crelf]

QUOTE (PJM_labview @ Mar 26 2008, 03:24 AM)

Does anyone knows if there is any way (involving scripting or not) to programatically get the context window to display a specific VI documentation?

This is a kludge (I know it's not what you want, but it's something that actually worked pretty well for an old project of mine): Open a reference to the VI that you want to get the data from, then read it's "VI Description" (it's a the text from the VI documentation), then feed that into the "Description" of the FP node that the mouse if over - the context help window will update with the new description of the FP node. (I *think* I had to do this on a "Mouse Move" event to make sure the context help window updated, but I don't remember...)

Hey - I warned you that it was a kludge

[Ton Plomp]

QUOTE (PJM_labview @ Mar 26 2008, 08:24 AM)

Does anyone knows if there is any way (involving scripting or not) to programatically get the context window to display a specific VI documentation?

For instance I am looking for something that would take a VI path and will get the help windows to display this VI documentation.

Thanks

PJM

Their is a private method to return the image of the VI icon including the wire descriptors (just as it is shown in the help window).

I'll look it up tomorrow.

Ton

[PJM_labview]

QUOTE (crelf @ Mar 26 2008, 07:38 AM)

This is a kludge (I know it's not what you want, but it's something that actually worked pretty well for an old project of mine): Open a reference to the VI that you want to get the data from, then read it's "VI Description" (it's a the text from the VI documentation), then feed that into the "Description" of the FP node that the mouse if over - the context help window will update with the new description of the FP node. (I *think* I had to do this on a "Mouse Move" event to make sure the context help window updated, but I don't remember...)

Hey - I warned you that it was a kludge

Chris,

I already contemplated this solution and I am keeping it as a backup solution because by doing this you can't have the VI icon image and terminal name like you have natively when mousing over an SubVI/Primitive.

Thanks though.

PJM

[crelf]

QUOTE (PJM_labview @ Mar 26 2008, 12:57 PM)

I already contemplated this solution and I am keeping it as a backup solution because by doing this you can't have the VI icon image and terminal name like you have natively when mousing over an SubVI/Primitive. Thanks though.

No worries - it's a pretty grotty way of doing things, but I can't think of any other way that would work.

[Ton Plomp]

QUOTE (tcplomp @ Mar 26 2008, 05:40 PM)

Their is a private method to return the image of the VI icon including the wire descriptors (just as it is shown in the help window).

I'll look it up tomorrow.

QUOTE (PJM_labview @ Mar 26 2008, 05:57 PM)

can't have the VI icon image and terminal name like you have natively when mousing over an SubVI/Primitive.

Et voila:

The Whisker info describes where the controls are located in the icon.

Ton

[PJM_labview]

Thanks Ton, I am aware of this method, and there is another one that works for primitive (see image below). But I am trying to have the existing context help window to programmatically display a VI Description (like you have when you natively mouse over a SubVI/Primitive). I am not trying to rewrite the help window feature (although I may have to).

Note1: The attached VI shown in the screenshot will crash LV for indices value around 330, so save your stuff if you want to play with this.

Note2: Here is one of the "primitive" image I got using this VI: Coerce to Type...

PJM

[crelf]

QUOTE (PJM_labview @ Mar 26 2008, 05:13 PM)

I am not trying to rewrite the help window feature (although I may have to).

Sorry mate, but I think you just answered your own question.

[Ton Plomp]

QUOTE (PJM_labview @ Mar 26 2008, 10:13 PM)

Thanks Ton, I am aware of this method, and there is another one that works for primitive (see image below).

Thanks

QUOTE

I am not trying to rewrite the help window feature (although I may have to).

And did you?

Ton

[Aitor Solar]

The "Get Conpane Image" method also provides the help image for the VI.

BTW, the Coerce To Type function seems a conversion tool, probably unfinished. The description says: "Coerce the input to become the datatype associated with type and returns the results at the output terminal". Here you have a VI with the node.

Download File:post-1450-1209563170.vi

Saludos,

Aitor

Umm, is that a skull in the decompose and recompose icons...?

[PJM_labview]

Ya, I played with the "Get Conpane Image" too.

I actually gave up trying to programatically control of the Context Help Window (or create my own one) for the time being.

About the decompose and recompose icons, I think you are right. This definitively look like a skull.

PJM

[crelf]

QUOTE (PJM_labview @ Apr 30 2008, 11:47 AM)

I actually gave up trying to programatically control of the Context Help Window (or create my own one) for the time being.

:question: I wonder if you could use a user32.dll (or the like - I don't remember right now) to make the context help window a child of a parent VI front panel window and manipulate the VI...

[Rolf Kalbermatter]

QUOTE (crelf @ Apr 30 2008, 02:35 PM)

:question: I wonder if you could use a user32.dll (or the like - I don't remember right now) to make the context help window a child of a parent VI front panel window and manipulate the VI...

You could but what would that give you other than manipulating the position and possibly the size of the floating Help Window? And if you were in user32 land already you can do that directly too, and in fact you can use the LabVIEW Help Control function to do that too (at least the position).

Doing what PJM wants would require sending LabVIEW messages to LabVIEWs main event handling routine. Unfortunately I wouldn't know how to format one of those. All I have is a tiny little C code someone once whipped up for me to control the help window state when LabVIEW did not have the Control Help Window node.

QUOTE (Aitor Solar @ Apr 30 2008, 09:50 AM)

Umm, is that a skull in the decompose and recompose icons...?

It is and you know why . It's a warning that playing with this will most likely cause your computer to start radiating deadly rays :ninja:

Rolf Kalbermatter

[crelf]

QUOTE (rolfk @ May 1 2008, 03:31 AM)

You could but what would that give you other than manipulating the position and possibly the size of the floating Help Window? And if you were in user32 land already you can do that directly too, and in fact you can use the LabVIEW Help Control function to do that too (at least the position).

Yeah - that was a problem I had on an old project - in the interests of reusability, I documented every FP node (some dynamically based on their changing functionality) and then layed-out the screen so that the context help window was in the right place. Problem was that every time I moused-over a different control, the context help window would resize to the size of the help for that node, completely screwing up my UI layout (I'm http://forums.lavag.org/blog/crelfs_technology_articles/index.php?showentry=142' target="_blank">very particular about UI layouts ), so I had to reset the size (using user32.dll) every 150ms or so