CVI 9.0 ActiveX Controller Wizard problem

[msaxon]

The ActiveX controller wizard in CVI 9.0 appears to limit function names to 37 characters max, whereas the help file suggests they should be limited to 79 characters.

This is unfortunate, as I am currently trying to create a controller fp for an ActiveX control with over 1600 functions, the names of which are now all too long. Previous versions of CVI have been able to create the fp (for other versions of the same control) with no such difficulty.

Is there any chance of a fix for this? Why the change in the first place?

[nickb · Accepted solution]

Hey Martin,

While I don't have an explanation for how this may have happened on your machine, the remedy is an easy one.  First open some .fp file - it doesn't really matter which - and then go to the Options>>FP File Format menu.  Here, you will want to set the Default Format for New Files to either 5.5 or 8.5.  Both of these options will give you the 79 character max. 

NickB

National Instruments

Message Edited by nickb on 02-18-2009 08:22 AM

[msaxon]

Nick:

The 'default format for new files' appeared to be set to CVI 5.0.1 and earlier (why? I certainly didn't do it!); setting it to 8.5 or later cures the problem. Many thanks for your quick response.

It might be a good idea in future releases if the help for the ActiveX controller wizard pointed the user at the help for different fp formats, rather than just flatly saying (apparently wrongly) that there is a 79 character limit on names

[nickb]

Hey Martin,

After looking into this a little bit more, I think we've found the culprit.  In CVI 9.0 we changed the default behavior of our ActiveX controller wizards.   Previously, the wizards generated the .fps in the latest version possible, which caused some problems because if you generated a controller in CVI 8.5, you would not be able to use it in any previous version of CVI.  Thus, we made the change to use the Default Format for New Files instead of the latest version possible.

What most likely happened in your case is that when you installed CVI 9.0, you chose to import your settings from whatever version of CVI was previously installed on your machine, overwriting the default CVI 9.0 Default Format for New Files setting of CVI 5.5 and Later.  Most likely, this previous version of CVI also had the default format set to 5.0.1, but because the wizard generated .fps in the latest version possible, you did not run into the issue you have reported.

Based on the change that we made, I agree with your idea to modify the documentation, and I will make this suggestion to those responsible for the documentation.

NickB

National Instruments