Can LabView open a browser?

[R]

I would like to be able to open a Microsoft Internet Explorer window from a LabView program generated address. A user entered address though a Front-Panel Control would be fine to start me off.

This would seem to be a simple task compared to all the other web related possibilities. I've tried DataSocket (which I now understand to be geared to sending data across the internet, not for generating or reading web sites) and System Exec (giving the �IEXPLORE www�� as the �command line� input. Can anyone point me in the right direction? I hope eventually to create a server application offering real time images from a device controlled by LabView (the controlling part already works) but this seems to be in the far far distance at the moment. Any
help or example would be greatly appreciated.

Richard.

[Mikael_Garcia]

Richard,
I am sure you can solve this problem in many ways. Anyway, here is one way of opening a browser with a given address. Use the System exec VI and give the path to the IEXPLORE.EXE as a command and just add the address after it. Like this: "C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE http:\\exchange.ni.com"

This should open a window to NI Developer Exchange. I hope this helps. /Mikael Garcia

[parenp]

If you are seeking to place the web browser directly in the front panel, then just use an ActiveX container control with the Web Browser ActiveX object in it. If you wish the browser to be spawned externally, then I believe that your system exec approach should work. Did you have problems using that?

Also, if you are opening a web browser to view images being captured by a webcam device, then a better solution may be to use the webcam directly from within LabVIEW. A decent LabVIEW webcam library can be found at www.mindofpete.org in the ideas section.

Pete

[R]

Brilliant! - It works. I thought I'd tried this, but I must have tried to access explorer though a different route or somehow miss-typed. Many thanks, Richard.

[R]

As I said in my original post, I wanted to get something really simple running. And as I said in my reply above, I've got the System Exec VI running. I know very little about ActiveX right now...

For information, the imager I mentioned is a rather exotic component designed in-house which requires National Instruments data acquisition PC cards to get useful data and present on my PC screen. I'd like to create some sort of server application to offer real-time demonstration images over the internet in the style of a webcam eventually...

Thanks for you comments and information, Richard

[Rolf]

Take a look at the VI in the in Browser.vi.

Rolf

"R" wrote in message
news:5065000000080000001F580000-1027480788000@exchange.ni.com...
I would like to be able to open a Microsoft Internet Explorer window
from a LabView program generated address. A user entered address
though a Front-Panel Control would be fine to start me off.

This would seem to be a simple task compared to all the other web
related possibilities. I've tried DataSocket (which I now understand
to be geared to sending data across the internet, not for generating
or reading web sites) and System Exec (giving the "IEXPLORE www." as
the "command line" input. Can anyone point me in the right direction?
I hope eventually to create a server applicatio
n offering real time
images from a device controlled by LabView (the controlling part
already works) but this seems to be in the far far distance at the
moment. Any help or example would be greatly appreciated.

Richard.