Closing a Front Panel SubVI Automatically During Execution

[dp_wave]

Hello!

Please see attachments for reference.

The Front Panel of SubVI “SCN PAUSE” (in this example) gets called and is displayed on the screen. I’m trying to find a way to close its Front Panel during program execution without the intervention of the operator. In other words, is there a way for the Front Panel to disappear once Frame “0” of the Sequence Structure completes its task and moves to Frame “1”? The idea is to display the Front Panel only during the execution of Frame “0”.

If you do a check on “Close afterwards if originally closed” in the “Customize Window Appearance” in the “Window Appearance” Category of the VI Properties (attach. #1) &/or of the SubVI Node Setup (attach. #2) dialog boxes, the Front Panel appears only momentarily.

Thank you!

[lmtis]

dp,

Does your subVI require any manual input to complete execution?  It sounds like it opens, executes, and then closes. Perhaps it needs an OK button on the front panel.

Jim

[dp_wave]

Jim,

No it does not require any manual input to complete execution. This is precisely my point. I just want the "SCN PAUSE" Front Panel to appear on the screen while SubVI "Tx OP SUB FULL" executes and then disappear without any operator intervention. The "SCN PAUSE" is basically a screen alerting the operator that the data is being crunched....thanks!

[DFGray]

You can close the front panel of a VI by using the Front Panel Window -> Open property of the VI.  Set it to FALSE.



P.S.  Consider using PNG format for future graphics posts.  They are smaller and can be viewed directly in all browsers.  If you are feeling particularly nice, you can convert them to 8-bit color (256 colors) first, to make them even smaller.  For historical reasons, LabVIEW diagrams only use colors in the default 8-bit gamut, so this will not usually cause problems.

Message Edited by DFGray on 05-23-2007 07:43 AM

[lmtis]

Yes, using invoke nodes to Open FP, Run VI, and Close FP will accomplish what you are trying to do.

[dp_wave]

DFGray,

Thanks for some good info. Unfortunately, this node invocation does not automatically "close" the Front Panel.

[dp_wave]

Jim,

Thanks for your support. This does not solve the problem (as to my experiments) of "closing" the Front Panel automatically after the Sequence "0" has terminated its execution.

Please see latest attachment.

[TCPlomp]

Hi,

your VI will most likely not run. If you add an error handler to the invoke node you'll see an error.
Instead of a 'method' node you need a property node:


Ton

PS LV 8 has an close method, don't know if older versions have that

Message Edited by TonP on 05-23-2007 09:25 PM

[Marc_A]

I haven't looked at your attachments (you should really take DFGray's advice and save them as PNGs), but I don't think I would do it the way you are. You have a sub VI that does some processing and you want to tell the user that it is busy doing some work. I would use a separate VI to do this that can be opened and closed, with a progress bar perhaps.

If you really want to only use one VI for this, try the front panel window -> state property. you can set it to "hidden" after the first sequence frame executes. You would also have to set it to "standard" when the VI first runs so that it is shown. This will allow it to keep running even if it isn't visible to the user. I'm not sure what version introduced this, but I don't think it's very old. You may not see it before 8.0.

[dp_wave]

Ton,

The VI runs fine and there's no error handler. The method you suggests only "opens" the VI Front Panel, which can be done numerous ways. The only drawback that I have is that the user has to manually "close" the window, which I would like to "invoke" automatically. We have at work version 6i which has the "Open" method but not the "Close" method...thanks!