Did You Know LabVIEW Could Use .NET Controls on the UI?

You can display standard and custom .NET user controls on LabVIEW front panels.

Did you know that NI LabVIEW software supports .NET controls on the front panel? As more computers are shipped with preinstalled .NET controls, you can use LabVIEW to take advantage of these resources in your applications.

With LabVIEW, you can instantiate .NET classes, invoke methods, set properties, capture events, connect to Web services, and incorporate .NET user interface (UI) controls on the front panel. The .NET framework provides general-purpose UI controls, such as calendars and rich text boxes, which complement the wide array of built-in LabVIEW controls. Specific .NET add-on packages, such as NI Measurement Studio software, provide additional scientific controls that you can use in LabVIEW to take advantage of visual styles available in the latest .NET UI libraries.  

Integrating .NET Controls with Your UI

With LabVIEW, you can either fully configure .NET controls using the .NET container on the front panel and invoke nodes on the block diagram; create preconfigured .NET controls, or user controls, from a .NET programming environment and subsequently call this building block in LabVIEW; or use a mix of both approaches.  

For instance, to visually display margin-of-error bands on an acquired signal, you can perform one of the following:

1. Place a Measurement Studio graph in a LabVIEW .NET container and programmatically customize the appearance of plots, such as error bands, using .NET invoke nodes on the block diagram.
2. Preconfigure the appearance of plots for the Measurement Studio graph in a .NET environment. Save the customizations as a .NET user control and plot to the preconfigured graph from LabVIEW.  

Due to the open UI architecture in LabVIEW, experts and novices alike can create sophisticated applications that combine the power of LabVIEW and .NET both on the application and on the presentation layer.  

View a webcast on integrating .NET controls in LabVIEW front panels.  

Community News: LAVA

LabVIEW Advanced Virtual Architects, or LAVA, is an independently run Web site containing valuable resources for intermediate to advanced LabVIEW users. Browse through the forum discussions to learn cutting-edge programming techniques, which can shave months off your development time. If you have gone through the basics and want to take your programming to the next level, or if you are an advanced user looking for a community of peers, then a visit to this site is a must.  – Michael Aivaliotis, LabVIEW Champion

Learn more or get involved with LAVA.

This article first appeared in the Q1 2008 issue of Instrumentation Newsletter.

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