Developing a LabVIEW Add-in

[Charles Chickering]

Hi all, where is a good place to look for information on developing Add-ins for LabVIEW? What is the proper terminology for "Add-In" in LabVIEW ("Add-in" comes from Microsoft Office)? I am trying to figure out how to get a tool that I wrote in LabVIEW to add itself to the default Menu Bar so I can invoke it easily from other VI's. Any direction you can give would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Charles

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

QUOTE (Charles Chickering @ Oct 21 2008, 06:33 PM)

Hi all, where is a good place to look for information on developing Add-ins for LabVIEW? What is the proper terminology for "Add-In" in LabVIEW ("Add-in" comes from Microsoft Office)?

Hi Charles,

Add-in is OK, most of the time I use 'Tools'. To build a menu-started VI, have a look at the LabVIEW Wiki Development environment portal. Especially the how-to on menu launch VIs and this PDF on customizing LabVIEW.

Ton

[Charles Chickering]

QUOTE (Ton @ Oct 21 2008, 12:04 PM)

Hi Charles,

Add-in is OK, most of the time I use 'Tools'. To build a menu-started VI, have a look at the LabVIEW Wiki Development environment portal. Especially the how-to on menu launch VIs and this PDF on customizing LabVIEW.

Ton

Thanks for the quick reply Ton, one quick question on the how-to on menu launch link you provided, where do I place the directories they mention there? Also, where do I store my LLB file?

Thanks,

Charles

[gb119]

Out of interest, is there any information in the public domain on hooks into the project window - e.g. creating new context menu items for different entries in the project heirarchy like the Endevo GOOP toolkit manages - or is this all provided only under a NDA with NI ?

[crelf]

QUOTE (Gavin Burnell @ Oct 21 2008, 04:58 PM)

Out of interest, is there any information in the public domain on hooks into the project window...?

Sorry Gavin, but it's controlled by NI. Even if you knew the hooks, I think there's something on the LabVIEW side that needs to be enabled to allow your tool to leverage the project explorer. That said, talk to NI - they are interested in expanding the http://sine.ni.com/nilex/MainAction.do' target="_blank">LabVIEW tools network, so if it makes sense to give you access to that sort of stuff, then I'm sure they'd be interested in helping you.

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

QUOTE (Charles Chickering @ Oct 21 2008, 07:34 PM)

Thanks for the quick reply Ton, one quick question on the how-to on menu launch link you provided, where do I place the directories they mention there? Also, where do I store my LLB file?

Thanks,

Charles

The PDF from Jim Kring mention these items.

To get a tool up in the Tools menu place it in the 'project' folder of the LabVIEW directory.

An LLB can be placed in the same directory.

To prohibit automatic indexing of a file (either llb or vi) start the name with an '_'

Ton

[Charles Chickering]

QUOTE (Ton @ Oct 22 2008, 03:53 AM)

The PDF from Jim Kring mention these items.

To get a tool up in the Tools menu place it in the 'project' folder of the LabVIEW directory.

An LLB can be placed in the same directory.

To prohibit automatic indexing of a file (either llb or vi) start the name with an '_'

Ton

Thanks for the info Ton. I've got it sort of working. Is there any way to get the VI that was frontmost when the menu was called? When LabVIEW launches my "Tool" it becomes the front most vi. I have tried using the call stack vi to see what called the vi but that doesn't work. I've also tried the application node of frontmost diagram vi but that doesn't work unless I working on the diagram of the front most vi. Is there a way to get the display order of the windows?

Thanks,

Charles

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

QUOTE (Charles Chickering @ Oct 24 2008, 03:54 AM)

Is there any way to get the VI that was frontmost when the menu was called?

From the wiki page on menu launch VIs

QUOTE

Private Feature Exposed There is a private VI server method called Application:Menu Launch VI may be found exposed on the diagram of the "Web Publishing Tool" (.\project\webdoc.llb\_Web Document Tool.vi) this property returns the last VI to call a "Tools" menu VI (it doesn't work for "Help" menu), but returns it only once then returns a null string until another "Tools" menu VI is selected from the menu. Use this feature to create a tool that operates on the VI that the user launched it from, like "Check into Source Code Control", or something similar. Unfortunately this does not work for the File (.\wizard) or Help (.\help) menus.

See this post.

Ton