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Property nodes

I have 18 different tests/18 different buttons.  Good or bad coding, when you push one of the buttons it writes a string ( hard coded in an event structure based on button hit) out the serial port.  I do some measurements and a check inside a Do/ loop.  If the test fails the 1st time a popup tells the operator to try again.  The question is can I grey out the other 17 buttons until the test is run the 2nd time??  If test 1 fails I grey out Buttons 2-18.  If test 2 fails...1 and 3 -18.  Because of my code I have to create 17 property nodes for each of these conditions.  For some reason you can't "Copy and Paste" property nodes.  You have to right click on each button > create> property node> diasble !!!  That gets tedious for 17 event structures x17 buttons.  Other than the greying out of the buttons if it fails the 1st time the logic works.  I have a shift register that counts the number of times the Case failed.  There are 18 different cases for each event.  In the case stment is the check.  Any suggestions how to deal w a test to grey out or not allow the user to select Test 2, 3, 4,5 , 6......18 if test 1 failed the 1st time??  Can I write a subvi with a property node from a calling vi??  In other words create 18 property nodes once.  Put them in a subvi. Do the logic to check to see if the test failed the 1st time in my calling vi.  If it failed called the subvi to grey out the right buttons. 

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hi,

you can copy the property node, then right click on it, select link to from which you can link the property node to any other control or indicator on the front panel,

 

Zaki

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Message 2 of 12
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for greying the buttons, if your test outputs the number of the test which failed, you can expand the example I have attached for you.

 

hope this helps

 

Zaki

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This is still 17 buttons x 17 tests.  Just curious, does anyone know why you can't cut and paste a property node?  I suspect its because the link between the node and the instance is broken.

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Zekasa... that just might work.  Thanks.

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You can also select all those properety nodes and while pressing the ctrl key, drag their duplicates using the mouse.  They will maintain the link to the original control.

 

Now that it has been said...  You may want to re-visit your approach.  Greying out & disabling / enabling controls is not a very good way to force an operator to accomplish a particular task.  Furthermore, simply repeating the same steps may not get you better or different results, unless there are a series of race conditions which renders the code undeterministic.  When relying on test repeat to get a pass, how can you be confident that a test indeed passes or fails?  You should investigate the root cause of the failure and fix that.  Re-test will mask the issue and it will bite everyone in the butt..  I've seen companies fail because of these types of masking..  And they ignored advice to the contrary of their approach. 

 

If re-test is part of the normal operation (which would escape my wildest imagination), then you may want to rethink your GUI.  Greying out and disabling controls is not an appropriate approach in my books (or internal white papers).

 

 

 

 

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Ray,

My thoughts exactly.  But this is coming from another grp not Test Equipment.  This is what they want.  Anyways, do you have any sugggestions ( links) that could point me to a better approach to greying out the buttons ??  Or can you comment on why you don't like this idea?  It may prove useful in future applications.

 

Thanks

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The biggest reason is all the extra overhead in enabling or disabling the controls, which usually ends up with messy code.  17 controls would be messy.  Also, it forces the operator almost in a corner where you may need additional controls to handle "what if..." conditions..

 

I would have to see the GUI to be able to make any recommendations.

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Message 8 of 12
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Hi!

 

Do you have like: Test 1, test 2, test 3... test 17? And the operator have to go through all of them? Also, in order?

 

If so, you could have built your test more automatic. With for example a state machine, some shift registers and a few boolean buttons(Start, stop, abort etc.). I do this a lot and I can easily expand my test with further states. Based on a result of one test I can choose to abort, save a report, prompt the user etc.

 

The whole test becomes more user-friendly and you can avoid a lot of operator errors. 

Regards,
Even
_________________________________
Certified LabVIEW Associate Developer

Automated Test Developer
Topro AS
Norway
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Message 9 of 12
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Even,

 

I suspect that he already has that type of an architecture, as described in the original post.

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