Tuesday, August 22, 2006

An Object-Oriented Getting Started Window

Today, I'm going to share with you a feature that's currently in development for a future version of LabVIEW. It's a new version of the Getting Started Window (GSW).

My goal for this project is to change the content definition of the GSW to a user-configurable XML file. (This means you will be able to change the items on the right to the functionality of your choice).

My approach used LabVIEW Object-Oriented Programming. I'm sharing this with you because I think it is a good example of several LabVOOP principles.

Disclaimer: I am providing these VIs only as an example. Although they are a functional replacement for the Getting Started Window that shipped with LabVIEW 8.20, they have not undergone the verification and validation of a released product.

(edited January 22, 2007) The VIs are no longer available on NI's FTP site. If you e-mail me at my gmail account, I can send them to you.

(edited August 21, 2007) There is a shipping example in LabVIEW 8.5 (Navigation dialog) that is a simplified version of these VIs. You can download the same files in LabVIEW 8.2.1 format here).

I highly recommend that you explore the VIs using the project file, which organizes them into a hierarchy. A few of the subVIs are password-protected, but I don't think they interfere with seeing LabVOOP in action. You can run the top-level VI (GSW_Main.vi) and stop it by clicking the close box on the window.

The general idea of the design is that the panel contains buttons for the links, and I associate each button with a handler object that defines the button's displayed text and the functionality when the user clicks it.

There's too much to discuss in a single post, so I'm going to be talking about this example for awhile.

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9 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

I can't Open any vis in this archie files, it's alter me that the vi's version than my development enviroment.my Labview is the LabVIEW 8.2.

8:04 PM, August 23, 2006  
Blogger Christina said...

If you're having trouble opening the VIs, please e-mail me at eyesonvis@gmail.com so I can help you. I know other people have successfully opened the VIs with the shipping version of LabVIEW 8.20 (version number 8.2), so I'm not sure what could be causing your difficulty.

1:48 PM, August 24, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

After I redownload the labview 8.20 evaluation version ,and reinstall the LabVIEW 8.20, I can open these Vis, thanks christina!

7:35 AM, August 27, 2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Great to see that LAVA is one of your favorite sites! :)

1:24 PM, August 27, 2006  
Blogger Christina said...

Well, you know, Michael gave me a LAVA t-shirt at NI Week. :-) Seriously, though, I appreciate all our user groups very much. The LabVIEW community is what makes LabVIEW really great.

8:31 PM, August 27, 2006  
Anonymous Henrik Skupin said...

Thank for given us the opportunity to have a look inside the Getting Started Window. It's a really good example which shows the features of OOP.

I like the way of working with XML files. So I decided to also use it within my own application. But there is one big issue left with the ParseXMLFragments.vi which stopps me in using the XML functionality. I described it here:

http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&message.id=231745#M231745

Is there a way to circumvent it until it will be fixed for one of the next versions of LabVIEW?

Henrik

3:10 AM, February 26, 2007  
Blogger Christina said...

I apologize if my example misled you with respect to the XML parsing. For performance reasons, the Getting Started window uses a simple parser that does not implement full XML parsing.

There are other options for using XML in LabVIEW. The Internet toolkit includes XML VIs which utilize the Xerces parser. You could also use an ActiveX interface to Microsoft's MSXML.

- Christina

1:42 PM, February 26, 2007  
Blogger Ton said...

Super Christina,

I created an XML file that shows OpenG builder and Package builder! (and removed the browse button and list mainly the recent projects)

Ton

12:26 PM, June 12, 2007  
Blogger Christina said...

Hi Ton,

I'm glad you're having fun with the new Getting Started window!

- Christina

3:09 PM, June 13, 2007  

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