LabVIEW
How to Automatically have Legend Names Match Variable names
Use to get the name of the control and update the name of the corresponding plot with a plot property node.
For extra credit:
Google "labview abuse of local variables" and "labview abuse of dynamic data" and learn from the results.
Local variables don't have names, they just point to the label of their associated control or indicator. Labels are fixed at compile time, so you might as well hard-wire them or set them manually. Only control/indicator legends can be changed at run time.
If you have an array of strings for example that corresponds to the desired legends, you can iterate over it using property node in a loop. Set the active plot to [i], set plot name, wash, rinse, repeat. Do that only whenever the plot names change, and not with every iteration of the loop, of course.
There is absolutely no need for dynamic data here. You could build a cluster instead. (dynamic data carries a lot of extra baggage that is completely irrelevant here)
Good answers that beat me while I was making a VI. Here is one option that reads the labels from the controls (because it is carried on the wire). You can get these names and then set the plot names to these. However more often people don't change what the labels are, and so you can just type them in on the front panel and they won't change. If you do want them to change as the program is running I show how to get them from the wires (only getting them on first run) and I have a control that when changed will change the labels.
@Hooovahh wrote:
Good answers that beat me while I was making a VI. Here is one option that reads the labels from the controls (because it is carried on the wire).
IMHO barely OK for four controls, but unacceptable for 19 controls as in the original request. 😮 Maybe if we would carry the 19 values as a single cluster of 19 controls, we could iterate over the references of the cluster elements to get the names.
Somehow, this entire question smells of trying to find a fake solution to a non-problem. If architected and designed differently, this question would probably not even come up. Maybe we should have a look at the actual entire code of the OP to find a better solution from the ground up.
@altenbach wrote:
@Hooovahh wrote:
Good answers that beat me while I was making a VI. Here is one option that reads the labels from the controls (because it is carried on the wire).
IMHO barely OK for four controls, but unacceptable for 19 controls as in the original request. 😮 Maybe if we would carry the 19 values as a single cluster of 19 controls, we could iterate over the references of the cluster elements to get the names.
So sorry, in my haste to get an example I didn't realize there were that many. Still one could use some VI Server to automatically get the control labels if they follow some convention. Like every control starts with a number which is the index to be on the UI, and the UI just showed the captions. Then get a list of all controls that start with a number and set the plot based on that. Slightly better but again if this isn't something that is going to change then just set it once and forget about it.
@paul_cardinale wrote:
@Hooovahh wrote:
@altenbach wrote:
@Hooovahh wrote:
Good answers that beat me while I was making a VI. Here is one option that reads the labels from the controls (because it is carried on the wire).
IMHO barely OK for four controls, but unacceptable for 19 controls as in the original request. 😮 Maybe if we would carry the 19 values as a single cluster of 19 controls, we could iterate over the references of the cluster elements to get the names.
So sorry, in my haste to get an example I didn't realize there were that many. Still one could use some VI Server to automatically get the control labels if they follow some convention. Like every control starts with a number which is the index to be on the UI, and the UI just showed the captions. Then get a list of all controls that start with a number and set the plot based on that. Slightly better but again if this isn't something that is going to change then just set it once and forget about it.
Or put the controls in a cluster (make the border invisible if you like), and order them as desired.
Couldn't have said it better 😄
@altenbach wrote:
Local variables don't have names, they just point to the label of their associated control or indicator. Labels are fixed at compile time, so you might as well hard-wire them or set them manually. Only control/indicator legends can be changed at run time.
If you have an array of strings for example that corresponds to the desired legends, you can iterate over it using property node in a loop. Set the active plot to [i], set plot name, wash, rinse, repeat. Do that only whenever the plot names change, and not with every iteration of the loop, of course.
There is absolutely no need for dynamic data here. You could build a cluster instead. (dynamic data carries a lot of extra baggage that is completely irrelevant here)
Before I posted about the Data Type Parsing solution, I made sure it worked on locals, too. I was half afraid it wouldn't.
