Create Custom Data Type from Labview Tab Control?

[GSinMN]

Hello All,

  I have a previously created Labview VI that I have been using for a TestStand Code Module.  I am trying my best to keep the front panel well organized and user friendly so that I can continue to reuse it for manual testing (outside of TestStand).  One issue with this is that I have a large number of controls organized in a Tab Control container.  TestStand does not seem to recognize a tab control as a container.  From what I can tell, it only recognizes it as the I32 enum that it uses to select tabs.  I have successfully created custom data types for TestStand from Labview clusters, so I know it would work if I pulled all of the controls and indicators out of the tab control and put them into a cluster, but I don't want to do this because it would make the front panel too big to view/use.

Any suggestions for either :

A.) An alternate Labview container type that TestStand will recognize, but still allow for "stacked" controls.

B.) A way to make TestStand treat a tab control more like a cluster when it is imported as a parameter.

Please Advise.

Thanks,

GSinMN 

[Taki1999]

I think you may end up doing a bit of rearchitecting of both. Here how I would go about it though.

For each tab in your current VI, create a Cluster of the controls on that tab.

Make your manual VI into a state machine that calls a modular subVI.

Now make your TestStand call that modular subVI instead of your top level Manual GUI.

This way your manual GUI really is a manual GUI separate from TestStand but all of the underlying code is the same and any updates in the subVI will be picked up by both TestStand and the Manual GUI.

My 2c.