Embed subpanels and control remotely

[Kyle Thompson]

Thank you for the suggestion. I got it working but there are still some interesting quirks.

Does the web browser make LabVIEW unstable or is it just me? I think I have fully crashed LabVIEW seven times in trying to get this to work. I think it happens when I run the remote VI and the server VIs are not running. Interestingly, it is the server that crashes and not the remote system! I will have to watch that one more closely.

How do I get rid of the scroll bars on the remote VI? On the server side I went in and changed the VI appearance settings so that none of the scroll bars or toolbars would show during execution. In the web browser containers on the remote VI, I even specified the height and width that the windows should be. But it insists on putting a white border around the outside and showing more of the remote front panel than I want. The server VIs are set up so there are some objects on the front panel that the user will not see...they are just outside of the window size that I specify. But the remote container still shows some of those objects because the window is larger than I want it to be.

Also, I found that I can put a web browser in either an ActiveX or .NET container. The methods that are available to use are different between them. I was wondering if you would recommend which one to use. I don't have much experience with the technologies, so I need an opinion.

Kyle

Message Edited by Kyle Thompson on 06-18-2007 10:44 AM

[Rudi_N]

Kyle:

It is great to hear that we were able to get things working. I have yet to run into any instance where LabVIEW was unstable because of the Web Sever. Please watch this carefully and let me know if you run across this consistenty so that we can investigate it further.

To get rid of the scrollbars on the remote VI, you could set the Scrollbar Visibility of the Pane to "Off While Running". This essentially removes the scrollbars at Run-Time. Take a look at the attached VI and let me know if it makes sense to you. I tried it on my end, and was able to achieve what you described. The choice between ActiveX or .NET depends on what you are trying to do. I would suggest that you map out what you are trying to do and then we can configure which interface will work best.

Regards,

Rudi N.

[Kyle Thompson]

I have continued to monitor the stability issue. My guess is that it was caused by something I was doing. The server application will be running constantly, not just starting up when it is accessed remotely. And the user will not be given the option of stopping the server VI. So what I need to do before I close the remote VI, is to release control back to the server. However, I only need control for one of the two remote panels. But I have not disabled the stop button that is currently on one of the remote front panels. So I was stopping the server VI from a remote location but my remote VI was still expecting control of a panel that was no longer running on the server. I hope that makes sense!

Thank you for the hint on getting the scroll bars for the window to disappear. However, I would like to make the scroll bars on the Web Browser container disappear. The scroll bars are present in both of the containers because the contents of the container is larger than the size I have made the container. My problem would easily be solved if I could get rid of the white border that is put around the remote front panel (attached screenshot). I am guessing it is an caused by the HTML because when I view the page in Internet Explorer, there is also a white border. Then this affects my remote VI because the web browser container is just displaying the HTML page.

I have done some HTML in the past so I looked at the file and removed anything that might be adding the border, but I still cannot get the front panel object to sit flush with the side of the page (attached screenshot). Ideas?

Kyle

[Rudi_N]

Kyle:

Since the container's size is smaller than the VI's FP size, why don't enlarge the container to see the entire front panel?. Removing the scroll bars will remove the ability to view the entire front panel, unless I did not understand the question very well. Please let me know I misunderstood you.

Regards,

Rudi N.

[Kyle Thompson]

Well I finally just decided to change the HTML background to match the grey color of a front panel. I was able to match it exactly with color B3B3B3. So when I had the remote front panel open in IE, you could tell where the edge of the front panel began! Then in my remote VI, I just expanded the containers enough so that the scroll bars went away. Unforetunately, the vertical scroll bar becomes disabled but is still visible. It works and looks much better than it did before, so I think I am going to leave it alone and settle for what I have now.

Thank you for all the support!

Kyle

[Rudi_N]

Kyle:

It is great to hear that things are going well now. Please feel free to post again if you have further questions.

Regards,

Rudi N.

[Kyle Thompson]

A further issue that I have come across:

Whenever I load the remote VI, it automatically loads the web page in the browser container. I don't even have to execute the VI and the page loads, or it trys and graciously tells me that it couldn't find the web page.

I would like to be able to keep it from loading until I can have the user enter in the computer name of the Vi server. I simply created a string control for the name and added a boolean control. An event is triggered when the boolean control changes value. The event structure contains all the other code that concatenates the URL and feeds it to the web browser.

I do not understand how (or even why) the web page loads in the container without anything being executed. So I would like to know why it does that and how I can stop it.

Kyle

[Rudi_N]

Kyle:

Does the web page load when the VI is opened or as soon as the VI is in run-mode?. If the latter one is occuring, you could encapsulate the section of the code that loads the web browser in a case structure with a boolean control that determines when the page is loaded. Please let me know if this makes sense to you.

Regards,

Rudi N.

[Kyle Thompson]

The web pages load before the VI even runs. I double-click the file to open it and as soon as the front panel comes up, it begins loading the web page. It isn't in run mode or anything.

I tried to encapsulate all the code that loads the web page in an event structure. But the pages still load. It just seems like it is a property of the web browser container that it automatically loads without execution.

Kyle

[Rudi_N]

Kyle:

I believe that the ActiveX server gets started as soon as the VI goes in memory. A workaround would be to load a blank page into the ActiveX Container and then pass in the "real path" when you are ready to load the page. Please let me know if this is a viable solution.

Regards,

Rudi N.