Datasocketing a Front Panel

[Richard@Loughborough]

Hi,

I'm looking for a way to transfer the image of a front panel from one vi (which will be running) to another vi. I was thinking of datasocketing the front panel items; however, it seems as though you can only datasocket indicators on an individual basis - i have 40+ items I'd like to data socket and I don't really want to cluster all of the indicators as I'd have to rewrite the entire block diagram.

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Richard

[tst]

Use the web publishing tool (in the tools menu). You can then connect to the front panel through a browser, embed an ActiveX browser in your front panel or use the Connect to Remote Panel option from the Operate menu. And you won't have to write a single line wire of code.

[Stuart_R]

If you are using LabVIEW 8, it is also possible to bind a shared variable to a front panel item. The Shared Variable can be configured to have a cluster data type which may be another option for you.

I'm a little confused by your description - are you trying to avoid create a cluster of the objects? If so, then you have no choice and will have to individually bind the front panel objects to a variable (or use datasocket pre 8.0). It will depend on how you have your code structured, but it may be simpler to package your data on the block diagram and use TCP comms for passing the data between different machines/VIs. I wouldn't worry too much about the fact that you have to modify the code; this normally doesn't cause a complete architecture re-write and there are clear benefits in implementing this on the block diagram as it will make the readability of the code better rather than Front Panel binding.

Let me know your thoughts and we can discuss further. If you want, you could post code here and I'll advise which is the best approach to go for.

Thanks,

Stuart

[Richard@Loughborough]

Cheers for the advise.

I decided to use the connect to remote panel.

Is there any way to program this in labview 7.1, so that when the user opens VI it automatically connects to the host computer and the VI on that front panel?

[tst]

Try using the Application class method Remote Panel Open Connection to Server.
Simply place an invoke node on the block diagram and that should be one of the available methods, since it defaults to the Application class.