Display front panel of step inside tab of user interface

[ATEDJ]

When selecting the option to "Show VI Front Panel When Called" I want that front panel to open inside or part of my user interface, like a "sub panel" idea.

Is it possible?

How do I go about it?  User Messages? VI Server? Sub Panel?

If needed how do I get a reference to the VI in question into the User Interface?

Using LabVIEW 2010, TS 2010, Modified Simple OI, and all the brain power I can muster.

[DowNow_]

Hi,

You can't strictly do that. You'd have to 1) fire a UI Message to the UI VI and tell it to load the VI as a subpanel (as you normally would in LabVIEW) and 2) tell your VI in the step not to pop open. You might want to have two copies of your VI, I'm not sure, maybe you could use the same one but it might require slightly different behavior. There's a property called RunState.IsEditor you could use to switch between the two modes of operation. This would be handy when you are running out of the sequence editor, you'd still have the pop up version. You could add a step, one step would fire the UI message, the other would be your original, use preconditions with RunState.IsEditor. There's probably other ways. Needless to say, the pop-up method is far easier and more scalable.

cc

[ATEDJ]

DowNow_,

I agree the pop up method seems much easier, is there a way that I can force that pop up to lay over a particular portion of my UI?  So it looks like it's in the UI but if you were to drag it away you'd see differently.

[DowNow_]

Oh sure, I guess I'd use the LabVIEW VI properties on the LabVIEW diagram to move the window precisely in front. You could do something fancy like ask the UI where it was (Send a UI message, have the UI get Sequence Context from the message, use Sequence context to write the position into TestStand Locals, or write to Station Globals), then adjust the popup's position. Or if your UI was maximized you could put the VI into position statically. I'm not 100% sure, but it's a manual, do it yourself deal.

You're supposed to make your popup LabVIEW window modal to TestStand, there's an example in the TestStand examples. You could get away with having it not be modal but it can get lost behind the UI in some cases. And there could be other obscure side effects.

You can remove the title bar from your VI. Then if it was modal the user couldn't move it around.

cc