Display Bug in LV 8.20 Application Builder

[EdDickens]

There seems to be a minor bug in the displaying of the "VI Settings" in the application builder for LabVIEW 8.20.

The problem is in an executable build spec, in the "Source File Settings" category.

Select a sub VI in the tree, then uncheck the select box for the "Remove Panel" property. Now select any other VI in the tree, then go back to the one you unchecked the "Remove Panel" box. You should see that the box is now checked.

If you don't do anything else and just select "OK, then go back into the build spec, you'll see that the property was correctly saved as unchecked. So it looks like it's just a display problem.

I've made sure the VI I try this with does not use any property nodes and it is not marked as a dynamic VI. I can reproduce this on two machines running Windows XP Pro SP2 and LabVIEW 8.20.

Ed

[JB]

I have also seen this on my machine. Unfortunately, this seems not to be only a display problem. In my case, it was not possible to run the EXE because some front panels were missing. Because there was no way to change the settings properly in the application builder, I finally edited the .lvproj file. After that, the EXE ran as expected.

[Riconquistiamola]

Hi Ed,

You're correct that this is a minor bug.

This was reported to R&D (# 45HFQRCY) for further investigation. Thanks for the feedback!

JB, I have not been able to confirm this is more than a display problem. Can you provide more information about when this problem occurs?

Michael K. | Applications Engineer | National Instruments

[JB]

In addition to Ed's comment, I would like to say that this unexpected behaviour is not always appearing. I have just seen following while editing this text :

I have unchecked the Remove Panel box for all the UI VIs (all are located in the same directory). When scrolling through the different UI VIs in the Soure File Settings, the box was unchecked for all the VIs. Without closing the Source File Settings window, I switched to Developer Zone and switched back to the Source File Settings. For some UI VIs, the Remove Panel box was checked. I closed the window and opened it again, the box was unchecked again for all the UI VIs.

But I have also encountered the case that when scrolling through the VIs to try to uncheck this setting for all of them, it suddenly appears checked again for a VI for which it was unchecked or unchecked for a before checked VI.

You finally end with a very unclear situation and it may be that the Remove Panel is really checked for some VIs. At least, in some cases, the built EXE could not run because of missing front panels. I can't remember the exact error messages when running the EXE but they mentionned the name of the VI and something about missing ressources. I opened the .lvproj file and noticed that the "Remove Panel" property of these VIs was set to TRUE. After modifying these settings and rebuilding the EXE, it ran as expected.

In development, I normally uncheck "Allow user to resize window" of the UI VIs because this setting can unfortunately not be changed when configuring the executable. In the "Source File Settings" I uncheck all options of "Use VI Setting" for these UI VIs and I only check "Auto-Center" (all VIs) and "Window is Modal" (some VIs).

There is another problem with the application builder that I would like to mention. For (at least) following settings, the development settings of a VI will not be overwritten by the Source File Settings when building the executable :

- Window has title bar
- Show Menu bar
- Show Toolbar
- Show Scroll Bars

This is also very annoying because you will need to change these settings in the development environement in order to get the expected appearance in the executable.

LV8.2 English / WXP SP2

[JB]

I forgot to mention that the last problem only applies to the top level VI.

And sorry for my rather poor English... It would be much easier to write in French or German.

[Riconquistiamola]

Hi JB,

I am still unable to reproduce your previously discussed issue with more details, but it certainly sounds like the checkbox is not a valid indicator of the true selection and would cause the error you are seeing. An executable will not run if "Remove Panel" is checked on any VI if the front panel should appear when the executable is running.

Unfortunately, we are aware of the VI Settings bug in LabVIEW 8.20. This was reported to R&D (# 42AA340Z) for further investigation. A possible workaround for this issue is to specify the VI Settings you want in the development environment.

Michael K. | Applications Engineer | National Instruments

P.S. No worries with the English, you can speak 2 more languages than I can !

[JB]

I am still unable to reproduce your previously discussed issue with more details, but it certainly sounds like the checkbox is not a valid indicator of the true selection and would cause the error you are seeing. An executable will not run if "Remove Panel" is checked on any VI if the front panel should appear when the executable is running.

After building a first executable you may be asked to add some functionnality to it. Several UIs may be added to the project and when configuring the new executable, the "minor display bug" will make this task very unclear. In my case, the "Remove Front Panel" box is not always checked again when displaying the configuration of another VI and then switching back to the previous unchecked one. Sometimes it is, sometimes it is not. How can you then know if a front panel is really removed or not ? I finally opened the .lvproj file to edit it to get a working executable...

Unfortunately, we are aware of the VI Settings bug in LabVIEW 8.20. This was reported to R&D (# 42AA340Z) for further investigation. A possible workaround for this issue is to specify the VI Settings you want in the development environment.

Like mentionned in my previous comment, this is in fact what I do.

Thank you for your time

[Riconquistiamola]

Hi JB,

The checkbox is not functioning as expected, so there's really no way to ensure the "Remove Front Panel" option is selected correctly. However, if you make modifications to its value and leave the menu the option you selected will be used when the executable is built. From my experience, the option selected remains if you do not move back and forth between the subVIs associated with the main project.

Michael K. | Applications Engineer | National Instruments