how do I programmatically edit items in a Text Ring inside a cluster

[fanman]

I have a text ring inside a cluster array that I would like to change programmatically.  I know how to change the text strings in a ring when the ring control is not inside the cluster. 

[Ben]

From the FP pop-up on the ring (just the ring!) and select create property node.

Ben

[tst]

And for the more generic solution, you can get a reference to the controls inside a cluster by using the cluster's Controls[] property.

The order of the references is the tabbing order and you can use the To More Specific Class function to cast the reference to your target class.

[GerdW]

And you can check the Label.Text property to be sure you got the correct item in the cluster!

[DonRoth]

But is there a way to directly get ring item text for rings in an array without converting to cluster per below code:

[GregFreeman]

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@GerdW wrote:
And you can check the Label.Text property to be sure you got the correct item in the cluster!

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But you do have to be careful with this. If the label changes, the code no longer finds the reference. I prefer Ben's method (not the one listed above ) of bundling all references into a cluster in an action engine, or a gui manager. I then create a new action for each different gui management action I want to take. The looping through references is definitely a quicker solution, but I like having a cluster with the explicit names of the references, to force any other developers (or myself) to explicitly unbundle the reference they want to use.

[DonRoth]

Note that when I created the VI snippet, the reference name changed from 'cluster' to 'cluster 2'.  VI snippet must not have been able to determine that the reference was from the cluster.

[Alisha_P]

If you right click on your array and click Create»Property Node»Ring Text»Text then you shouldn't have convert to a cluster. If you read a string from this property node, it will give you string value of whatever array index is selected.

[DonRoth]

If you right-click on the array ELEMENT, you can create a property node to get ring text.  However, you can create a similar property node for the ARRAY of menu rings.   As you can see below, there is no way to get ring text in this case.

[Alisha_P]

Oh yeah -- sorry about that DonRoth. I understand better what you're trying to do now. I can see how you would prefer not to create a property node for each element in the array.