open LabVIEW Help programatically

[Emna20]

hi , 

i want to know how to enable button (in front panel) to open LabVIEW Help .

Best Regard.

[Bob_Schor]

I'm not sure I understand your question.  The Help button is used to provide help to LabVIEW programmers during program development, and has no function during the execution of a LabVIEW program.  Buttons on the Front Panel (of a LabVIEW routine), on the other hand, only respond during program execution, when (LabVIEW programming) Help is not relevant.

If you want Help to be more accessible during programming, open LabVIEW and type ^H (Control-H) while in the LabVIEW Environment.  This turns on the Help System -- if you hover the Mouse over any LabVIEW Control, Indicator, or Function, its drop-down Help will appear, indentifying the object and showing a brief Description, often with a Detailed Description just a mouse-click away.

Bob Schor

[Emna20]

Hi  Bob_Schor,

i create help file(.chm) for my VI and when i click Help for this VI in the Help menu my help file appear . now i want to put button in the front panel that make me open my help file .

is that possible ? 

Best Regard .

[Darin.K]

You can control both the LV context help and the LV Help from your VI.  This snippet shows how to toggle the context help and launch the LV Help, just point it to your chm file.

[Emna20]

Hi Darin.K , 

i am using LabVIEW 2018 . i want to know where i found Launch LVhelp ?

Best Regard .

[Bob_Schor]

The location DarinK showed you is for 32-bit LabVIEW 2014.  If you are using 32-bit LabVIEW 2018, there is a single-character change you need to make in the address Darin used to find where LabVIEW 2018 has the _LaunchHelp VI.  I won't insult your intelligence by actually telling you where to find the LabVIEW 2018 version ...

Oops, I just noticed that Darin's address started with D:.  You need to specify the drive that Windows is using for its files (for probably >95% of PCs, that would be the C: drive).

Bob Schor

[Emna20]

hi , 

thank you .

Actually i know where i found the location of LabVIEW 2018 . But sorry i didn't see the path that DarinK give it to me . i think that Launch LVhelp is a toolkit that i have to download it .

Best Regard . 

[Emna20 · Accepted solution]

Hi , 

using Launch LVhelp won't work  because this function open chm file that exist in this path : C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\LabVIEW 2018\help .

i take the Launch LVhelp code  and i build my path . and it works !

(you find below the code ) .

thank you everyone .

Best Regard .