TestStand Subsequences

[mrbean]

I'm using TestStand 3.5 and LabVIEW8.  I'd like to be able to load a sequence file that shows maybe four main tests with a '+' beside each and if the user clicks the '+', each of the four tests expands to display the subtests that make up that upper-level test.  Ultimately, I'd like enough granularity that I could select an upper-level test, and it would run all tests contained within it, or I'd like to expand one of those upper-level tests and be able to select a sub-test and run one or more of those.  Any suggestions/examples?  Also, if this is possible, is there a way to specify what the expand/collapse icon is?  In other words, instead of a '+', could I have a folder icon?

[RayFarmer]

Hi,

You could use a tree control as part of your main control on your Operator Interface panel.

I tried something similar along time ago, so that I could display to a user a list of steps to run rather than having to hightlight them then select one of the "Run Using ..."options.

Attached is a picture showing a tree control with the set of step. A branch is where there is a sequencecall.

Regards

Ray Farmer

Message Edited by Ray Farmer on 06-01-2006 09:29 PM

[mrbean]

That's exactly what I'm looking for, but I'm afraid I'm going to need some help with this.  I read the LabVIEW help about tree controls and looked at an example.  Where I have no clue is how do I mesh one of these tree controls with TestStand?  If I open a sequence, it has the typical list of tests.  How do I replace that appearance with this tree control and still retain all the functionality (behind the scenes) of TestStand?

[mrbean]

I created the attached Tree Control.  Any suggestions for where to start in getting this VI incorporated into TestStand?

Message Edited by mrbean on 06-02-2006 01:43 PM

[Dennis_Knutson]

You should look at Ray's answer in the posting at http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=330&message.id=1666&query.id=0#M1666. It should help you get started in reading the information from a sequence file. Populating a LabVIEW tree control is fairly simple once you have the TestStand info.

[mrbean]

Although some of Ray's posting makes sense, I'm not really clear that what he's doing there is exactly what I want to do.  I have the newly created tree control VI, and I have a sequence file that contains all the same steps.  I thought that somehow, the sequence file would get replaced with the tree control.  Would I still need to create a sequence file that mirrors what's in the tree control?  I'm just not getting the link between the tree control and the sequence file

[Dennis_Knutson]

I thought the whole point of this thread is that you wanted to know how to populate a LabVIEW tree control based on whatever sequence you loaded? If you have tree control in your UI, then it would be blank unless you wired some constants to populate and that doesn't make any sense. If you want any kind of flexibility, you have to start with a blank tree control and then populate it based on a sequence file that you select to run. The sequence file would get parsed in your LabVIEW code according to Ray's post and then the tree control would be updated and displayed. I think that you are saying that you want to have a sequence file made to match an existing tree structure and that's just bass acwards.

[mrbean]

This is starting to make sense.  I took one of the tree control threads out of context and wasn't making the link to TestStand.  I thought the author of that message was saying to use a tree control instead of a sequence file.  Now that I have the theory down, I can betther try to understand Ray's approach.  I'll do some more experimenting.  Thanks. P.S. I am a little bass ackwards.

[RayFarmer]

Hi,

The purpose of the the tree control or the SequenceView Control is to provide the user a visual representation of the contains of the SequenceFile, so that you can provide some level of control for such tasks as debugging, setting  breakpoints, block selection of steps to run and so on.

If you are not doing any of things, then displaying the contents of the sequencefile becomes a redundant task.

So yes, you need your sequencefile, so that you can pass a reference to the NewExecution method.

Hope this helps

Regards

Ray Farmer

[mrbean]

Although I'm working with the LabVIEW version of the TestStand OI, I think I follow the steps you outlined in the other thread for obtaining the names fo the steps in the MainSequence and any SubSequences.  How, though, do you suppress the display of the sequence file steps and replace that with the tree control?  Also, of bigger concern, is the processing TestStand currently performs.  What I mean is that if a user selects a step and right clicks, he can run the selected test, or loop on an idividual test.  Before I even attempt to replace the sequence appearance in the OI with a tree control representation, I want to make sure that I don't have to implement all the event handling, status, report generation code that is currently handled by TestStand for the loaded sequence file.  I simply want to represent the tests in a different way.