DDE control of Labview front panel controls

[smercurio_fc]

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robojeff wrote:

I did use a VISA but not sure how to control this from another app. maybe some of these "buzz words" that are new to me will allow me to find links to some useful information that I can learn more.

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What is this other programming language that you are trying to use? VISA has an API for the most common languages out there, such as VB, C, C++, C#, VB.NET.

[robojeff]

[quote]

What is this other programming language that you are trying to use? VISA has an API for the most common languages out there, such as VB, C, C++, C#, VB.NET.

[/quote]

Winbatch.. don't know of an API for this.

[smercurio_fc]

There wouldn't be support for WinBatch within VISA. You'll need to see if WinBatch can interface with ActiveX objects.

[robojeff]

[quote]

There wouldn't be support for WinBatch within VISA. You'll need to see if WinBatch can interface with ActiveX objects.

[/quote]

Ok, I will pursue that on the Winbatch end. How can I learn about how to interface to the Labview side of things?

thanks again

[Ben]

Wiki for Winbatch says extenders availabe for GPIB and Serial so no need to get LV involved at all.

Ben

[robojeff]

Wiki for Winbatch says extenders availabe for GPIB and Serial so no need to get LV involved at all.

Ben

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thanks Ben but I have both of those extenders and they are only good if you have a GPIB device or USB Com port

showing up in the device manager of your PC for the device.

Unfortunately, this device does not have either as it only shows up as a USB measurement device and has no

hooks for Winbatch to send it data.

I am told by the Winbatch folks that  I need to have a vendor-supplied device

driver to make any particular USB device function properly.

Or a Virtual COM port (VCP) drivers can be used to make the USB device to appear as an additional COM port available to the PC.

In theory, WinBatch could then access the USB device in the same way as it would access a standard COM port.

[rolfk]

USB measurement device most likely means an USB TM Class device. In that case a serial port access indeed won't work and I actually doubt one could get a VCP driver that translates a USB TMC device into an virtual COMM port eventhough technically it should be possible to do such a thing.

Personally I would try to control the LabVIEW VI through the LabVIEW Automation interface and the VBToLV example I have mentioned earlier would be a first starting point eventhough you won't use Visual Basic itself. But if Winbatch does have an Active X interface capability it will likely look pretty similar to the VB syntax and therefor will give you at least a good idea what to do, if you take a WinBatch ActiveX example and this VBToLV example and combine the information from both into a new script.

Alternatively you could also setup a TCP/IP server in your LabVIEW program and use TCP/IP functions in Winbatch to communicate with your VI.

Last but not least if WinBatch supports calling DLL functions you could create a LabVIEW DLL that exports functions from the VIs inside and access those functions from WinBatch.

Message Edited by rolfk on 05-21-2010 10:30 PM