Best way to make sure necessary programs are running?

[Gregory]

I found very simple solution that I think will fit my application: right click on the global variable and click on "timeout -> show"

This enables me to put in a value (say 10,000 ms) and if the variable times out for 10 seconds, then the output becomes true.

[Gregory]

This "timeout" functionality of the shared variable node is very nice, but it kind of hangs up the program. Right now I have an event structure inside a while loop. When I check to see if the shared variable has timed out for, say 500ms, it will take the full 500ms if it has timed out. It is annoying to have my program halt for that long. I just want to check for a time out in the background, should I use another while loop?

[SteveChandler]

Yes definately put it into another loop. You could use a user event or notification to communicate back when the program you are monitoring stops running.

[Gregory]

I am a little perplexed because when I keep a variable at a constant value (though updating quite frequently) it says that the variable has timed out. The timeout is looking for a variable update, not a change in the variable, right?

[Gregory]

Taking Josborne's idea, I now have a while loop with shift registers that hold the time stamp information. If the timestamp is different than last time, I know the variables are being updated! Thanks Steve and Josborne!

[SteveChandler]

Go to the properties for the variable and enable buffering. Even if the buffer size is only one element.