Is there a way to determine which controls/indicators are input/outputs to a VI

[terminalman90]

I am trying programmatically document the functions of a directory of VIs. I know how to get the component list of a VI and also how to determine if the control is an indicator or not.

I am looking for a way to determine if the control is a connector for the VI or not. This information is available to (and displayed by) the context help window. Is there a hidden property of the VI that gives me access to this information?

[Travis_M.]

Hello,

One way to determine if it's a control or indicator is to right-click on it in either the front panel or the block diagram and you'll either see something like "hide control" if on the block diagram or "change to indicator" on the front front panel.  This is a quick way to determine that.  As far as to determine whether it’s a connector, your best bet is to right click the VI icon in the front panel to bring up the connector pane, and cycle through clicking on the connected items.  Its sort of an exhaustive search, but you probably won't have too many to go through so it shouldn't be too bad.

Hope this helps a little; let us know if we can help out anymore!

[terminalman90]

I don't think you understand. I want to *programmatically* determine which controls are connectors. I have 1300+ VIs to document.

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@Travis M. wrote:

One way to determine if it's a control or indicator is to right-click...

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Right clicking certainly can't be done programmatically. You are not suggesting I try to use some click based automation tool?

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@Travis M. wrote:

Its sort of an exhaustive search, but you probably won't have too many to go through so it shouldn't be too bad.

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Trust me, there are too many to go through.

[Donald]

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@terminalman90 wrote:

... I am looking for a way to determine if the control is a connector for the VI or not. This information is available to (and displayed by) the context help window. Is there a hidden property of the VI that gives me access to this information?

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terminalman,

You may want to check out the discussions on certain properties in the LAVA forum here.

Read all the warnings, etc.  You may not find an existing thread on what you want, but it's there.

[terminalman90]

Thank you Donald. That was very useful information. I found properties that would enable me to accomplish my task.

Another simpler (?) solution would be to use the print functions NI provides to create html documents. This function prints out all the information I require for documentation (and lots I don't want too). It doesn't give me complete control on the output, but I suppose I could take the html code output and post process it into my own format.

[Chris_Cilino]

terminalman90,

I've taken a look around in the properties and methods and currently there is no way to programmatically do what you're looking for with current NI software. That would be a great product suggestion though!

Best Regards,

Chris C

Applications Engineering

National Instruments

[Donald]

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terminalman90 wrote:

Another simpler (?) solution would be to use the print functions NI provides to create html documents. This function prints out all the information I require for documentation (and lots I don't want too). It doesn't give me complete control on the output, but I suppose I could take the html code output and post process it into my own format.

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I understand the "(?)" ... all depends on what you want in your documentation.

But just in case you've missed it while trolling through LV's properties and methods: you do have quite a bit of programmatic control (well-documented and supported by NI in this case) over what gets printed out to HTML/whatever through the Application: Printing:Custom properties.

Good luck.