How do I attach keyboard short cuts to visible teststand buttons in a labview ui

[PetrolHead]

On a normal labview VI it is possible to configure the desired key navigation options such as assigning a keyboard short cut to a control. Is it possible in some way also to assign keyboard short cut's to the visible Teststand Active-X controls i.eg. the Teststand button on a labview based custom UI ?

Please help 

[davidpcl · Accepted solution]

You may be able to do it by cloning every button, assigning a shortcut to the clone, and then triggering an event and calling the 'DoClick' method of the TestStand button - I say may as I can't verify that the DoClick method will do what you want.

Obviously can hide the clones on the front panel if neccessary.

 

[PetrolHead]

thanks for your reply. Implemented and tested!

[~jiggawax~]

Maybe filter for VKey and ASCII values?

See attachment.

[Al.B]

Alternatively, you can configure the shortcuts using the strings in the UIControlStrings.ini file, which defines the text that is used for the buttons.  It is located here:

<TestStand>\Components\Language\English\UIControlStrings.ini

In this file, the "&" symbol is used to define the hotkey.  for example, for the string "&Open Sequence File...", the hotkey is defined as "Ctrl + O".  I would recommend creating a copy of this file in the TestStand public directory, and modifying the copy rather than directly modifying this file.  this location is by default:

C:\Users\Public\Documents\National Instruments\TestStand <x>\Components\Language\English

[PetrolHead]

Hi

Thanks for the reply.

I thought of this as well, but my challenge is that my customer specifies other short cuts than the default ones!

[Al.B]

To Clarify, you can change the strings such that a new hotkey is assigned.  for examples, changing the string "&Open Sequence File..." to "O&pen Sequence File...", changes the hotkey to ctrl+P.  If the requirement is to change the modifiers, than this method will not be effective.

[PetrolHead]

Okay, now we are talking busyness !!