The most clever change has been added to Labview. I have just started
playing with it, but you programmers that write state machine programs
are gonna love this! There's a new structure called the Event
Structure. It's similar to a case structure, but the case is selected
based on an event message. It's got a built in default case that is
the "Timeout Case" and a timer. The timer is an input node to which
you wire a millisecond timeout value. When the structure executes, it
waits for user defined events to occur, one case for each event. If
none of the defined events occur, then the default timeout case
executes. If an event occurs, then the defined event case executes.
It's Labview messaging! The strucure also has an ou
tput node that
gives you access to the selected case value and the timer value. The
list of events for which you can define cases includes mouse actions
and value changes on front panel controls (no more shift register
comparisons or "value changed" subVI's to detect GUI events!!!).
I haven't written a full blown program yet, as I've only had it
installed for a few hours and only played with it for a few minutes.
It's pretty intuitive, though. I can see already that I'm goint to be
able to restructure many of my state machines and do away with a lot
of wiring.
It's also got some fully interactive web contol built in, but I
haven't had time to play with it. Just wanted to give my kudo's to NI
for supplying a badly needed new tool.
sm
