Connector pane

[Tom WP]

I have created an application wrapper that calls plug-in modules. It can
run any VI without knowing its connector pane configuration before-hand. It
does this using variant data and a VI supplied by NI. This VI gives you an
array of references to the controls on the connector pane. This works
perfectly until i compile the application, whereapon it stops functioning.
The VI supplied by NI is locked so i cannot trace the problem. Has anyone
else used this VI or have an idea why it isnt working... search for
"conpane" on the NI developer zone discussion forum to find the original
post and VI.

[Tom WP]

Oh just noticed it returns an error 1043....Feature not supported in this
application.

What does that mean?

[BrandonS]

The most common place I have seen this error with built applications is where the is an invoke node doing something that can only be done when the VI is in edit mode (ie save instrument and the like). It might be that the VI is doing something like this. With it being locked it will be hard to know what it is doing.

[mikeporter]

There really isn't any magic to the VI NI sent. When you open a reference to a VI one to the properties that is available to you is Controls[]. It provides an array of references to every control on a VI's front panel--even those that aren't connected to the connector pane.

There are however, things that are not allowed in a built application--like setting front panel defaults for example. You might be money ahead to learn a bit more about using references and build your own version of NI's function as it's essentially not very hard.

Thinking off the top of my head, the simplist implementation would be to open a reference to the VI, run it, wait till it finishes (the VI's state goes to "idle") and then read the contents of all the front panel indicators
to read in the data it returned.

Mike...

[Tom WP]

The difference between the standard Controls[] and the NI VI is that the NI
one only returns the connector pane controls. Using Controls[] it is
impossible to find which are attached to the connector pane.

[mikeporter]

Is it that big a problem? You have to know something about the VI you're calling, if you know the name of the indicator containing the data you need, you don't necessarily have to read all the front panel objects.

Mike...

[Tom WP]

Not really a problem in this application as i am writing all the VIs that it
calls. However i was hoping to develop a VI that could call any VI using
variant data, the problem is you dont know which of the controls on the
front panel are connector plane outputs. Oh well not to worry, thanks for
the advice though.