How do you finish off a LabView Program

[Steve Drake]

Hello, a newbe to LabView.

My question is how do you finish a program you want to give to a
user. What is the end procedure to getting rid of the stop button,
and the contineous run button. How do I make it look like a windows
program that just pops up, get the information from a user and then
exits when they want it to.?

Along with that can the process be reversed. We had someone come in
and build a little startup window. When I look at it in LabView I
only see two buttons at the top. I want to change some stuff in this
file but I can't debug it. So if I know how you finish off a program
I might know how to reverse the process so I can check out my changes
to the program.

Also just another thought how
do you document your programs and can
you print them out on paper so you can read them. Our LabView is on
an NT machine and they didn't install any type of printer but I want
to know if you can print out the program like a listing so I can look
at it when I'm at home.

Thank you In Advance (TIA) for any help you can give me.

Regards,

Steve Drake

[Greg_McKaskle2]

> My question is how do you finish a program you want to give to a
> user. What is the end procedure to getting rid of the stop button,
> and the contineous run button. How do I make it look like a windows
> program that just pops up, get the information from a user and then
> exits when they want it to.?
>
> Along with that can the process be reversed. We had someone come in
> and build a little startup window. When I look at it in LabView I
> only see two buttons at the top. I want to change some stuff in this
> file but I can't debug it. So if I know how you finish off a program
> I might know how to reverse the process so I can check out my changes
> to the program.
>
> Also just another thought how do you document your programs and can
> you print them out on paper so you can read them. Our LabView is on
> an NT machine and they didn't install any type of printer but I want
> to know if you can print out the program like a listing so I can look
> at it when I'm at home.
>

I'll give the short answer to these, for the details, please read the
documentation -- either the printed User Manual, or the online pdfs and
information in the Help menu.

To customize a window, use the VI Settup opitons. Popup on the icon in
the upper right and there are a number of options there. One leads to
lots of window management options, execution options, and printing options.

As for opening something given to you. If it is a VI or an llb, then it
is probably possible. The author could have password protected the diagram,
or they could have removed it all together. This isn't that common though,
and most likely, you just need to open a new VI, open the diagram, use the
VI... button in the bottom middle of the palette to drop your VI, and then
double click on it. This will open it in the editor.

As for printing, the File menu has two print options, one for printing the
current window, either the panel or the diagram, and there is one for printing
documentation. This can be used to print out several forms of documentation
for how a VI is used to write programs, how it is used interactively, or
complete documentation. You can also choose whether the documentation goes
to paper, to HTML, or to RTF. It sounds like you may be expecting the
diagram to be converted to text though. The pictures really are the source
code, and the printout is of the pictures with hidden frames shown, etc.

As for documenting a VI, the VI Info... menu item lets you enter in a
description of the function as a whole. Each control on the panel also
allows you to popup and view or enter a description. This is the normal
way to document VI, by adding information to the elements of the program.
Then the Print Documentation tool will organize that into a document based
on what is asked for.

Greg McKaskle