Pull in other help files to LabVIEW program

[m3rl3n]

I am working to create another avenue for programming at the company where I work. We have a lot of instrument drivers that were created in C# and I am creating wrappers that use those drivers, but allow the programmer to program in LabVIEW.

Once I have created the .NET driver wrapper, I can then use them within the test scheme that I am programming at any given time. The problem (great thing?) is that the .NET drivers that already exist, do have copious help files already created in XML. And the information in the help file(s) is directly translatable to how a programmer would use that driver, but in LabVIEW. Rather than totally re-create the help files I would like to just pull them into the LabVIEW driver help file, and make the small tweaks as needed, rather than re-write the whole thing. (Who says plagiarism isn't a good thing!! )

Thanks for any insight.

Dan

[smercurio_fc]

I'm not sure what kind of "tweaks" you're referring to, but the XML files that Visual Studio automatically generates from the XML comments in an assembly can be converted to HTML using an XSLT file. You can also use NDoc, but I'm not sure about its current state. I had read that NDoc3 was a replacement. There's also Sandcastle Help File Builder. I've used both NDoc and Sandcastle.

[Sev_K]

Hi,

In your driver subVI you can go to VI Properties and select Documentation. You can then paste the help file instructions into the VI description field. You can also add your help file under the "Help file path", however, as mentioned earlier you might have to convert your XML files into an HTML file using  XLST stylesheet. For how many drivers do you need to edit/import help instructions?

[m3rl3n]

Hi,

Thanks for the replies. I really had not done much with the documentation in LabVIEW other than always write my own from scratch, so I will try each of the suggested methods, and report back my thoughts.

Thanks,

Dan

[m3rl3n]

Thanks all!!  Once I did it, it was very simple. I got ahold of the help files in .chm format, pointed to the file, and there it was.

Like I said, I had not dealt with documentation that much, so just hadn't thought it al the way through.

Best Regards,

Dan