Cleaner block diagrams

[altran]

Hi,

I have a VI that has several hundred button controls and indicators.  I want to be able to hide or clean up the multiple controls and indicators so it wont clutter the block diagram.  Is there any way to do this?

Thank You,

Andy

[Jorge_Amaral]

Well... Only by this post it's a little bite difficult to help you. you can do 2 things.

1 - explain better

2 - post your code

Then I can help you.

[smercurio_fc]

You can put them into a cluster or an array. Then you'd have just one terminal in the block diagram instead of "several hundred".

[Tom Haggerty]

Another solution is to organize the controls and indicators onto tab pages of a tab control.

[Matt_W1]

If the controls are being handled by an event structure you can place each control in its event handler.

Matt W


Message Edited by Matt W on 01-22-2008 03:18 PM

[Wiebe@CARYA]

Get all control references from the front panel property node. Then, pass
the array to a sub VI that gets the name of each one of them (in a for
loop). Decide if a control or indicator is visible or invisible depending on
it's label (or alternaive, like caption, position, type).

Regards,

Wiebe.

[Ben]

I am in the same camp as Weibe on this topic. Prior to LV 6.0 keeping the top level VI's clean was a real challenge! Here are some screen shots to illustrate what I do.

This image show the top level VI after I finished the mock-up and got approval from the customer.

If you observe the scrool-bars, you can see I am only showing you a portion of the mess!  Let me say it for you, YIKES!

As a first step I organize my GUI objects logically and create clusters of references that are passed to helper VI that do the updates for me.

An example of one of the helper VI is shown below.

I hope this helps!

Ben

Message Edited by Ben on 01-23-2008 07:47 AM

Message Edited by Ben on 01-23-2008 07:48 AM

Message Edited by Ben on 01-23-2008 07:49 AM

Message Edited by Ben on 01-23-2008 07:50 AM

[vt92]

Ben,

Very nice. I like how you merge the errors.

[altran]

Thanks for the help all.  That's what I was looking for Ben, thanks.

[altran]

One question Ben, is your Front Panel (GUI) still customizable to the way you want it to look after using the clusters.

Sorry for double posting, I am unable to edit my previous reply.