Remote Panel Problems

[tbutterfieldeng]

Indicators and controls are displayed in their default state (enabled, disabled, disabled and grayed out) when loading a remote panel into a browser. When connecting to a remote panel the panel will be served up to the browser in its default state and will not update indicator and control attributes until they are written to on the local machine.

[JRA]

I'm not quite sure what type of problem you are reporting. When you load a remote panel from a client machine, it should load into its default state. This is because you are loading the VI itself, without any history of it running, onto your machine. Once you request control, you can run the VI and change any settings. Is there some problem in particular you are having with this?

[a100man]

This is an issue I noticed in LV 7.1 and was hoping to see resolved in 8.5, but I was disappointed. This behavior causes several problems if you connect to a VI that's already running. For example, if the default state for a stop button is disabled and greyed, it will load up that way on the front panel, even if that's not the state of the running VI. It will remain that way until the control property is written. In my case, I only write that property at the beginning of the test, so I can't access that button through the remote panel. Other odd remote panel behavior I have observed:

In multicolumn listboxes,  the default is loaded when the connection is established. If the code then reads from this control, the default data will be read even if the control had been updated before. So just establishing the connection changes the way the program will execute.

If a boolean is set to blink before establishing the connection, the blinking property will not be seen by the remote panel. Worse yet, the host will execute as if the control is NOT blinking (that is, property node reads of the 'blinking?' property will be false!) as long as the remote panel is attached.

I'm surprised not to see many others bothered by this type of behavior...

Greg

[NI-Bob]

Hello Greg,

Thank you for contacting National Instruments.  I understand your frustration on this issue and hopefully I can give you some information that will help you.  Here is a Knowledgebase Article that discusses this issue and some possible solutions Remote Front Panel Image Does Not Reflect Property Node Changes that Occur Prior to Connection.  This article should help explain why it happens and what can be done to help avoid this behavior.  I do apologize for this inconvenience but I hope that this information can help you handle this issue.  If you have any more questions after reading the article please just reply here and let me know.

[a100man]

Hi Bob,

Thanks for the information. Are there any plans to include the capability to save control states in the Runtime Engine for this purpose?

Greg

[NI-Bob]

Hello Greg,

I searched through the product suggestions that we already have for the Remote Front Panels and did not see much that resembled the capability to save control states in the Runtime Engine.  It is difficult to say whether that is on the list of functionality to be added to the Remote Front Panels.  However, if you would like to try and get it implemented you can submit a Product Suggestion.  Follow the instructions on this knowledgebase article to file a Product Suggestion.  If you have any more questions please just let me know.