programatically hide/show cursor

[Ben_01880]

I'm writing an application that is like a kiosk with a touchscreen.

Is there an platform independent method to hide/show the cursor

where you don't have to jump thru hoops for such an easy procedure.

The forums have staggering number or posts, but no clear winner. 

[smercurio_fc]

That's probably because there's no sure-fire solution.

Does the OS that's running on the touchscreen have this ability? I would think that since it's a kiosk it might. Barring that you can simply use the cursor VIs to load a cursor from file. Create a cursor file that's an invisible cursor. As noted here you may need to tweak the cursor file a bit to deal with potential graphical glitches.

[Ben_01880]

I use ELO surface acoustic wave monitors that provides drivers that

provide mouse emulation that is totally transparent to any application,

for both Mac & PC. I have tried the empty cursor approach, but it is a bit of a hack.

[Michelle_N]

There is a DevZone example here

I've attached an updated example if you have LV version later than LV7.1

[Ben_01880]

This code will not open on a Mac.

I'm looking for a "platform independent method" 

[Michelle_N]

My apologies, I will have to look into how to do this on a Mac.

But if you know all the possible operating systems, you could add a conditional disable structure to choose platform specific code based on the OS the VI is running.

Take a look at this KnowledgeBase: How Can I Conditionally Execute LabVIEW Code Based on the Target Platform?

[Ben_01880]

I do just this. I write code that is used for research at the university level. (UMass)

At the university there is a large Mac community. All the code I produce HAS to be platform

independent. Once you get past filename characters and extension problems Labview has

worked very well. I can write code and barely think about the underlying OS.  I would like to

see more effort from NI to continue to raise LV above the OS religious wars.  

[Michelle_N]

smercurio_fc has the right idea. Your best is creating an empty cursor file. This is the way to do it if you want to stay within LabVIEW the realms of provided LV VIs and without having to dig through the OS for settings/calls to change the cursor.