Great Resource for Learning a Common Architecture for LabVIEW Applications

[Elijah_K]

Anthony Lukindo wrote an excellent article on expressionflow.com that explains how to utilize a queued state machine architecture with multiple producer / consumer loops.  The example he uses in this article draws from several of the fundamental design patterns that should serve as the building blocks for almost any new LabVIEW application (see image below).

If you've never seen them, make sure you review the design patterns that ship inside of LabVIEW as starting points for your applications - even simple ones.  You can navigate several Frameworks for development by clicking File >> New in LabVIEW.  The dialog that will appear is shown below.  Note the descriptions for each design pattern under the image on the right.

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If any of you want to add your own design patterns to this dialog, you can.  This is potentially useful for groups of developers who would need to use a common, custom template regularly in their work.

To add a template, follow the pattern used for the existing patterns, which can be found here: C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 8.6\templates\Frameworks\DesignPatterns

This should include a png thumbnail and *vit template file.  Don't forget to enter descriptions in the VI Documentation Property so that users will know what they're getting themselves into!