Remote Panel exe no custom icon

[SteffanB]

I have a built exe which has remote panels enabled and is working properly, however there are two less than ideal issues I am trying to resolve:

1) The custom icon I have developed for my exe only appears in the titlebar of the server VI but not in the remote panel.  The default LabVIEW icon is displayed on the remote panel.  I assume this is because the remote machine's OS has not registered the icon of the exe and is using the icon registered to the run-time engine on the remote machine.  I would like to know if anyone has found a workaround to getting custom icons to show properly in the remote panel?

2) There seems to be a slight delay in actually loading the front panel of the main VI in the remote browser, or any pop-ups remotely for that matter.  You can visually see the LabVIEW toolbar (run, stop, VI icon, etc.) for a split second before the VI shows as running on the remote panel.  This occurs when calling a subVI set to open front panel when called.  Even if VI Server is used to load a VI and the VI is run well before the front panel is opened there is still a lag on the remote machine that displays the VI before it is running and shows the LabVIEW toolbar briefly.  Does anyone know how to improve this?  For pop-ups it looks a little awkward (I know pop-ups are probably not recommended for remote panels but my application requires a limited amount of them).

Steffan 

[GITA_A]

Hi,

Am not sure about the first issue but i had experienced the 2nd issue, as you have mentioned pop-ups are not supported by remote panels.See this link http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/371361B-01/lvhowto/fnclty_nt_spprtd_rmt_pnl/ for for info.

And you can use a customized pop-up to avoid this problem.

[Brian_P]

For issue #1 I found this in the Application Builder Manual.

Why doesn’t my application use the custom icon I specified?

LabVIEW can import black-and-white and 16-color icons in each of two

resolutions, 16×16 and 32×32, for a total of four possible icons. When the

icon file does not contain all four icons, LabVIEW uses its default icon for

the missing icon. Avoid this by using the Icon Editor to specify all icon

types.

http://www.ni.com/pdf/manuals/321809e.pdf

[SteffanB]

Geetha_AutoTEC,

I am already using a customized pop-up (a sub-vi with dialog properties) and this is where I noticed the problem so no, it does not avoid the problem.

Steffan

[SteffanB]

BBallBYU,

You are looking at the manual for Application Builder 6.1.  To clarify, I am using LabVIEW 2009 SP1.  And, as I mentioned, I have designed my own custom icon for the application and it shows up properly on the server side.  It only does NOT show up properly on the remote panel so I don't believe it is a problem with the way I have created my custom icons.  To clarify, I have custom icons defined for 16x16, 32x32, 48x48, and 256x256 resolutions (32 bit) using Icon Editor.

Steffan

[Joe_S]

Steffan,

Let's start with the first issue.  I have gotten a chance to test out the first problem on my own, creating an executable that runs with remote panels in LabView 2010 and I was not able to reproduce the problem with the custom icon.  The icon that I made for the VI shows up on the remote computer.  I did not see any CARs relating to this issue.  One thing you can try is running your program in the LabView development environment to see if the icon still won't show up on the remote computer.  That way you can determine if the issue is within LabView or within the executable.  You can also do the same thing to see if you still see the delay in the LabView toolbars.

Hope that helps!  Have a great day!

Regards,

Joe S.

Application Engineer

National Instruments

[SteffanB]

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@Joe_S wrote:

Steffan,

Let's start with the first issue.  I have gotten a chance to test out the first problem on my own, creating an executable that runs with remote panels in LabView 2010 and I was not able to reproduce the problem with the custom icon.  The icon that I made for the VI shows up on the remote computer.  I did not see any CARs relating to this issue.  One thing you can try is running your program in the LabView development environment to see if the icon still won't show up on the remote computer.  That way you can determine if the issue is within LabView or within the executable.  You can also do the same thing to see if you still see the delay in the LabView toolbars.

Hope that helps!  Have a great day!

Regards,

Joe S.

Application Engineer

National Instruments

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Hi Joe,

Thanks for the reply.  For the custom icon, that is created in the build specification for the exe so it can't be run from the development environment to test.  Which icon resolutions did you specify?  Does your remote test machine only have the run-time engine installed? I tried specifying icons for all resolutions but that did not make a difference.  One additional thing to note is that my server machine is running Windows 7 and the remote machine is running XP.  Could that be a possible cause?

As far as the toolbars delay, that is present in both development environment and as an exe so that one should be easily reproducible.  Let me know if I am missing something here.

Steffan

[Joe_S]

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@SteffanB wrote:

1) The custom icon I have developed for my exe only appears in the titlebar of the server VI but not in the remote panel.  The default LabVIEW icon is displayed on the remote panel.  

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Steffan,

There shouldn't be any issues going from the development environment to the run-time environment.  One issue that you could have is that the 256x256 icon is not supported by Windows versions earlier than Vista, so trying to deploy that on an XP machine may not work.  With that said, the icon that is specified in the icon editor within the application builder will take larger resolution icons and scale them down if no smaller sizes are created.  That is probably not where your issue is because you have specified an icon of every size. Perhaps attaching a screenshot of where you are seeing the default LV icon would be helpful.  One suggestion that has helped customers in the past is to try is to include the .ico file in the "Always include" source files in the application builder.

As for the other issue, I was able to find a CAR after a deeper search that may be related to your problem.  It is a known issue that we are currently looking into.  The CAR # is 186966.  You can hold on to that number and check from time to time the "Known issues" list as well as the bug fix reports for new releases of LabView.

Hope this helps!

Joe S.

[SteffanB]

Joe,

I also just verified the icon issue is reproducible all on the same server machine (Windows 7 based).  If I run my server vi exe then use a local browser to connect to it using http://localhost/, I will get two pop-ups (one for the server and one for the remote).  The pop-up for the server side correctly shows the custom icon, but the pop-up for the remote side shows the default LabVIEW icon.  This is the same thing that happens remotely and on different OSs so it appears that is not the problem.  I also tried always including the ico but that does not help.  I attached a screenshot showing the remote panel for one of my dialogs on the left and the server side dialog on the right.  Can you reproduce this?

Thanks for the CAR# on the other issue. Can I find a description of the CAR somewhere?

Steffan 

[Joe_S]

Steffan,

After doing more research, one option for solving the icon issue is to modify the actual code for your remote panel.  First, add your desired icon file to the www folder in LabView (National Instruments > LabView 2010 > www).  Then, in the header section of your code, add this line:

<link rel="shortcut icon" href="YOUR FILE HERE"> 

This should solve that issue.  As for the CAR, the best that I can do is describe the CAR issue to you, which is "Hidden menu items shown briefly on Web Published VIs".  After that, you will just have to hold on to the CAR number and check in new releases of LabView.

Let me know how this works for you!

Regards, 

Joe S.