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Parameter Table in Custom Steps

Does anybody know how to create a table of parameters for a user to interact with (in edit time) for a custom step type?  When you create a standard Action step, for example, with a LabVIEW VI, it gives you this nice table of parameters on the Module tab that are the ins and outs of your VI.  You can enter values or variable names here.

 

However, when you create a custom step type with that same VI as a post-step, the table of parameters is embedded in the step and the user can no longer interact with the inputs and outputs of the step through that nice table interface.  Perhaps this is good (in that you could have multiple VIs with lots of parameters, so how would the step know what to display and what not to display).  But it would be nice to still be able to create a set of parameters for your custom step that the user could interact with.  Presumably, in the creation of the custom step, you'd have to define how these parameters map to the ins and outs of the VIs that you setup as post-steps (or pre-steps, etc.).

 

Thanks!

 

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Hi Erik the Red,

 

It is a little unclear exactly what kind of functionality you are trying to achieve.  If you insert a custom step with the Labview adapter selected it will provide you with the same Module tab to configure the inputs and outputs.  However, when calling a VI as a post-step of a custom step I believe what you are looking for might be the Edit Substeps that can be created for Custom Step Types.  These substeps allows you create a portion of code that is able to be used to modify the settings of the step.  The idea is to create a VI or external program which prompts the user for some settings and return those settings to the step.  Some information on this process can be found here: http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/2772.  Also this article is a little older but might be of some use as well: http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/3193.

Justin D
Applications Engineer
National Instruments
http://www.ni.com/support/
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JD_war_eagle,

 

Thank you for the reply, and sorry for my delayed response.  I ended up speaking with a very helpful NI support engineer and have found a solution.  Thank you for the links, I will have a look at them.

 

Erik

 

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Steve,

 

can you please share the information which you got from NI? I have the same problem now.

 

Thanks

 

Madottati

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Madottati,

 

There's no way that I could find to get the in/out parameters into the module tab like I wanted.  What I ended up doing was putting the calls to my function/VI inside of a subsequence and then having my custom step call the subsequence.  Anything you put as a parameter to the subsequence shows up in the module tab of the custom step that calls the subsequence.

 

 

Message 5 of 8
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Unfortunately you are right, what I want is not (yet) supported.

 

By the way, the idea is posted long time ago on the idea exchange thread:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/NI-TestStand-Idea-Exchange/Ability-to-create-user-built-in-StepTypes/idi-p/1...

 

Give a Kudo to the idea, maybe NI takes more attendance at high-kudoed ideas.

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Yes, thank you for your feedback. We always appreciate customer feedback and we closely monitor them to be successful.

National Instruments
Applications Engineer
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Hi Edna-S,

 

... so let's hope that monitoring takes not too long...
because this feature request was born long before idea exchange was there.

 

 

Regards

Juergen

 

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Sessions NI-Week 2017 2016
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