Keep LabVIEW window on top BUT...

[WG-]

Dear fellow LabVIEW-users,

I've the following rather simple but again difficult problem. The problem is as followed.

My main LabVIEW application calls another VI from which the front panel is being loaded when the VI is called. The Window behavoir in the both VI "VI properties" is "default". Now I want to achieve that my newly loaded front panel stays on top. This can be done by one of the "Make Window Always On Top.vi" in the "WINUTIL.llb", which can be downloaded here. Now my problem is as followed. I want to keep functionality of both VI's front panel. The current behavoir however is that when I call "Make Window Always On Top.vi" that I lose the ability to control my main front panel.

Has anyone tried to solve this problem before? It must be possible I think? Because there are many other windows applications who do have the behavoir what I describe in certain functionalities they provide.

Regards,

Wouter

ps. My OS is of course Windows

pss. I try to make a example now.

[WG-]

Example attached

[Matthew_Kelton]

You didn't say which version of LabVIEW you were using, but later versions have an option to have a "Floating" window behavior.  If you set your subVI to be floating, it will stay in front of your main VI, but the main VI will still be accessible.

[WG-]

I'm using LabVIEW 2009 Servicpack 1

Furthermore I will try that what you are saying but I thought I already tried that yesterday.

[Matthew_Kelton · Accepted solution]

The problem in your example is not that the window is on top.  The way you are calling your VI is the problem.  Your main VI directly calls your subVI.  Your main VI is going to sit there and wait for the subVI to close.  You must call the subVI making a dynamic call to launch it as a parallel process, so that the main VI can keep running.

I modified your example to show how to do this.

[WG-]

Ya I just came up with that also 🙂 (don't know why I forgot that, that was possible) and it works now. I also use now the window property for changing the window behavoir to default or floating so now I don't need the WINUTIL.llb anymore for getting my VI to be on top yes or no.

Thanks anyway for your help. 

ps. you forget to open the front panel in your VI 😉

[Azby]

Thnak you!!!

[seanwin]

HI WG

    Thanks for you shared the sample, I  tried use the WINUTIL.llb at labview 2017 x64. but it cannot work. do you know why it is this?

[rolfk]

Because it was written about 25 years ago when everybody thought 32 bit will be way enough for at least another century. And LabVIEW had no options to configure a Call Library Node to call a 64-bit DLL which didn’t even exist back then.

All the Winutil vis need to be reworked to properly work in 64-bit but since it’s usefulness has been getting rather limited in newer LabVIEW versions due to new native LabVIEW features nobody really bothered to publish such a version yet.

[liuai987]

Very useful Thanks！