communicating with another program

[lvuser333]

I was curious as to what anyone thought was the best way to go about interacting with another program before I started off down the wrong path. The program simply turns on and off lights and I attached a screen shot of the user interface. My first thoughts were to use Active-X but I am not really sure how to go about this I have never used it. The manual says the unit can be operated with Visual Basic and Visual C++ but I am not really familiar with these either, any input would be appreciated

[GregFreeman]

Are you writing the C++ code, or does it exist already? If you are writing it you could use TCP/IP communication on localhost to communicate between the two apps. I'm a bit confused why the language you use to communicate matters, unless a program to communiate to the device is already written and you want to use it. If that's the case then you have to use an interface that it exposes. Does it expose active X? A bit more detail would definitely be helpful for people to give you the right answer.

[lvuser333]

there is some code that exists that was given to me from the manufacturer in C++ that i think will work, but I am not sure how/if this will work on the PXI box that I am using from NI. How would I know if it exposes Active X, I am very unfamiliar with this

[Mark_Yedinak]

Chances are the example code is using either some basic protocol over TCP or UDP. Does the manufacturer of the equipment document that? Given what you are trying to do I imagine this will be quite easy to implement directly in LabVIEW. The tough part is getting the defintion of the protocol. However this should be provided by the manufacturer.