Create shortcut to main application instance?

[ONse]

I have a problem with a program that I maintain which was designed by someone else a while ago. There is a VI which is supposed to generate a csv file with a report of what happens when the rest of the program runs, but unfortunately this VI does not run at all.

I believe I've narrowed down the problem to the fact that the report VI runs alongside the main VI. That is to say - there are only two VIs being called from the main application instance: main and report. We use a shortcut to main.vi to run the program (because its easier to debug than if we create an executable), but I believe this is what caused the issue. If we are running from main directly, then report will not run since it is not called by main.

So I'm wondering if there's a way to make a shortcut so that we can run the entire application. Is the only way to do this to create an executable? Or is there a way to run the main application instance while still keeping all the VIs available for debugging and repairs? I am still fairly new to Labview so not sure what to do. Thanks 🙂

[GerdW]

Hi ONse,

---

@ONse wrote:

I believe I've narrowed down the problem to the fact that the report VI runs alongside the main VI. That is to say - there are only two VIs being called from the main application instance: main and report.

So I'm wondering if there's a way to make a shortcut so that we can run the entire application. Is the only way to do this to create an executable? Or is there a way to run the main application instance while still keeping all the VIs available for debugging and repairs? I am still fairly new to Labview so not sure what to do. 🙂

---

So there is a "main application instance" (whatever that might be), but you are calling/running just one of two VIs that are called from this "main instance"?

Why don't you run the "main instance"???

[ONse]

Check out the photo I've added below. You can see the top level is called 'main application instance' but this is not a VI or something I can open/edit. I am assuming that if you create an EXE of the project, then it would run from this instance.

However because we are just using a desktop shortcut which points to the main.vi file, I believe that the program is starting there and therefore report.vi is not running.

I don't know how to run the program from the main instance. Since its not an actual file and only shows up when looking at the Labview heirarchy, I can't easily run it or create a shortcut to it. So I'm hoping that someone might be able to tell me how it could be done. 

[GerdW]

Hi ONse,

create a "main main" VI which calls both "not so main" VIs.

Then provide a shortcut to this "main main" VI…

It is very basic LabVIEW stuff to create a VI with some subVIs inside. Even when you are new to LabVIEW you should be able to do such a simple task. Otherwise there are learning resources offered at the top of the LabVIEW board!

[AeroSoul · Accepted solution]

Start the report subVI with Asynchronous Call Node set to Call and forget