Help: Making GUI for a C++ program

[arif215]

Hey everyone,

Someone suggested to me that using LabView for making GUI would be easy and fast. I have already written a C++ code for a Neuro Modeler and want to use LabView for the graphs that I am going to generate and other data. Can anyone tell me how I can do this? Would be great if you could point out some tutorials for me.

Thanks in advance...

[Mark Smith]

QUOTE (arif215 @ Feb 23 2009, 12:21 PM)

Hey everyone,

Someone suggested to me that using LabView for making GUI would be easy and fast. I have already written a C++ code for a Neuro Modeler and want to use LabView for the graphs that I am going to generate and other data. Can anyone tell me how I can do this? Would be great if you could point out some tutorials for me.

Thanks in advance...

I'm not sure what your actual application is but if I had a C++ app already written and I wanted to use the NI display widgets (graphs, buttons, etc like in LabVIEW) I would use Measurement Studio. If, on the other hand, your C++ code exposes a DLL interface then it might make sense to use LabVIEW and Call Library Nodes to build a UI around it.

Mark

Edit: add links

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/2719

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/4807

[bsvingen]

C++ is no problem, but you have to make wrappers. I am using C++ for lots of stuff:

http://wiki.lavag.org/DLL/shared_library

http://forums.lavag.org/C-classes-from-LV-t12905.html

Depending on the complexity of the C++ classes and code, it could be done very fast, or it could be much more difficult. You only need to make wrappers for the stuff you need, and make sure that the wrappers get access to the C++ code.

[jdunham]

QUOTE (mesmith @ Feb 23 2009, 11:46 AM)

I'm not sure what your actual application is but if I had a C++ app already written and I wanted to use the NI display widgets (graphs, buttons, etc like in LabVIEW) I would use Measurement Studio.

I would agree with this. I think LabVIEW is an awesome system, but it's not that great at creating GUIs. I know that sounds like heresy, but if the LabVIEW-supplied graphs and controls don't do what one needs right out of the box, then it can get difficult in a hurry. For example if you want to add right-click menu items to your graph, or change the plot colors based on the input data values. The OP apparently sounds like he hasn't looked at LV before today, so I don't see the sense in learning LabVIEW just to use its built-in graph when he or she could get very similar results from Measurement Studio using his native programming environment.

arif215, what do you want to do that you can't do in Excel, gnuplot or Matlab? If you answer that, we could be more helpful in telling you whether it's worth the trouble to buy and learn LabVIEW?

[arif215]

QUOTE (jdunham @ Feb 23 2009, 07:24 PM)

I would agree with this. I think LabVIEW is an awesome system, but it's not that great at creating GUIs. I know that sounds like heresy, but if the LabVIEW-supplied graphs and controls don't do what one needs right out of the box, then it can get difficult in a hurry. For example if you want to add right-click menu items to your graph, or change the plot colors based on the input data values. The OP apparently sounds like he hasn't looked at LV before today, so I don't see the sense in learning LabVIEW just to use its built-in graph when he or she could get very similar results from Measurement Studio using his native programming environment.

arif215, what do you want to do that you can't do in Excel, gnuplot or Matlab? If you answer that, we could be more helpful in telling you whether it's worth the trouble to buy and learn LabVIEW?

Thanks for the reply everyone!

I am working on my final year project and part of the requirements are to develop the code and then once working, make a GUI for it. I understand what you mean about using MATLAB for graphing, I have been doing that so far to make sure that my work is progressing smoothly. But for that I have to make use of both the C++ compiler and MATLAB at the same time. I am trying to integrate both together so I can get the graphs automatically without having to input them into MATLAB.