Building Application with some user added VIs

[X.]

Another question about building an application in LV 2010.

My goal is to release a core application to which users can add features (specifically fit models) by dropping VIs built around a common template into a pre-defined folder.

My initial release has a number of such VIs, which I copy independently from the main exe (in a post-built step). The problem is, they won't work.

The way this VIs are called is dynamically, using a Call By Reference node (see Fig. below).

The path provided is an absolute path which is user specified in the application. When I try this in the development environment, everything works fine. When I run the same thing in the released application, I get an error 1003 when calling the VI dynamically ("The VI is not executable. Most likely the VI is broken or one of its subVIs cannot be located."). Since the dynamically called VI uses one subVI which is included in the calling VI, I thought I would not have any such error, but apparently that is not the case. It seems that the dynamically called VI realizes it needs a subVI but it doesn't think of looking into the calling exe to search for that subVI...

Is there a way to solve this issue or go around it?

[Jake_H]

For dynamically calling VIs after the build, you need to follow specific steps. Try the link below and see if that solution works for you.

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/644C66077212FC218625760F004C6733?OpenDocument

[X.]

Hi Jake, Thanks. The link you provided confirmed what I had understood.

I have been thinking about this problem after I posted the question and I came to the conclusion that this is probably not going to be very practical. At best, I would have to ask users who want to develop their own "user" VIs to use a limited number of subVIs that are already in the built application, and calling them dynamically as well (using the known file structure of the built, etc). That's way too complex compared to what I had in mind.

I'll have to think of another approach.