LabVIEW as .NET server/dll?

[mesmith-ut]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone have any experiences to report compiling a LabVIEW executable as a DLL or ActiveX server and then calling the ActiveX server or DLL from .NET?

Mark Smith

Sandia National Laboratories

[Lycangeek]

DLL - I know that it has been discussed several times here and that I do it myself here at NI - mainly to ensure it works. There is an issue with the first thread to call into the DLL that is related to the UI threading issue. I talk about it here (http://detritus.blogs.com/lycangeek/2005/05/labview_and_asp.html) and here (http://detritus.blogs.com/lycangeek/2005/05/labview_and_asp_1.html)

ActiveX - Do you mean calling a VI via the LV ActiveX Server interface?

[mesmith-ut]

Yep, I think that's what I mean 😉  I haven't used the ActiveX server interface in some time and don't necessarily need to, but I wanted to know how it might be accomplished.  I'm giving a LabVIEW user group presentation on my experiences using .NET with LabVIEW and I'm trying to be complete.  The links you sent are really useful, since they point in the right direction to get started if you want to create functionality in LabVIEW that can be called from .NET.  BTW, I got started in the LabVIEW to .NET thing because I spend about half my time these days developing in C# and found some things (like the XML classes) that I could put to good use in my LV projects.

Also, sort of along the same lines, is there anything possible/planned for .NET created controls like the front panel container for ActiveX controls?

Thanks (and by now I definitely owe you a beer - if you're ever in Albuquerque)

Mark

[Lycangeek]

ActiveX Server - I haven't done it myself but there shouldn't be any reason why you couldn't do it from .NET. It has a TypeLib so you could create an interop assembly and have at. Let me know what your experiences are with it if you do.

.NET Controls - Yep. Just like the ActiveX controls. We are also adding support for the registration of .NET events, again just like the ActiveX event support. For the FP support, though, make sure you check out my recent post on "That Darn UI Thread". Also search for Lycangeek and Constellation in google and you'll find a few posts where I mention some stuff about the upcoming release.

[Nils_Gokemeijer]

Brian,

on your Blog you report on the problem with the first threat to call the LabVIEW dll (must keep this threat alive etc). Is this fixed in 8.0?

I do not have the ability to create threats in my applications, they are merely script engines with the ability to call user defined dlls.

Thanks,

-Nils Gokemeijer

[Lycangeek]

Yes, this was fixed in LV 8 by having LV create its own thread for UI work when the first call comes in. So you no longer need to do this.