Application with many Front Panels

[LVCoder]

Dear all,

I am working on an application which has 3-4 front panels.

Like, when the application starts, the "User Profile" panel is shown. From there i can move on to 2 different panels.

1 panel is for Taking data from the new user. another for taking test of the user.

i want to know is it advisable to display each panel from different VI, or, shud i have them all in a single VI and handle them by making Visible property On/Off.

Thanks,

Ritesh 

[johnsold]

If only one panel at a time is visible to the user, I would probably use a tab control for the different "front panels."  The tabs can be made invisible so the user cannot change them.  Change the control to an indicator and write the value to the terminal to change tabs.

If multiple panels must be visible simultaneously, then popup subVIs would probably be better for at least some of the panels.

Lynn 

[RavensFan]

By definition, a single VI can only have a single front panel.  You can do some things such as subpanels, but in those subpanel are technically different VI's.

What you may want to do is use tab controls.  Then each "front panel" is on a different tab.  You could even hide the tabs and just have the program change the tabs as needed depending on what mode of operation you are in.

[Joe_H · Accepted solution]

I think that the best way to do it would be to use the tab control. Place all the controls or indicators for each different "front panel" that you would have on the different tabs and then make the tabs visible/invisible. That way you only have one contol/indicator to keep up with. You could do a search for creating a wizard in LV. You would also benfit by using a statemachine type architecture for this.

WOW, while I was typing the message there were 2 more replies, all with pretty much the same answer.. 

Great minds think alike!!!!

Message Edited by Joe_H on 03-23-2009 10:48 AM

[MattBradley]

Hmmm... have you considered tab controls? 🙂 

Tab controls are great, I use them all the time.  But if they don't meet your needs, separate front panels would work fine too. 

If you have lots of controls and indicators, you may want to store references to them so you can access the front panel from subVI's.

[LVCoder]

Hi all,

Thanks alot for your valuable replies.

Indeed Tab control is working out great for me.  

I just have a small query now. Like i mentioned i have around 4 front panels in my application, and with every different panel, i am using event structure to take note on the controls.

Now that i have all the panels in one VI itself, should i add all those events in a single loop, or should i run them in 4 different loops? in terms of efficiency(both time and memory) which one would be better ?

Thanks,

Ritesh 

[SanRac]

HI

Put all the events in single event structure.

Regards

Santosh

[parthabe]

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Joe_H wrote:

Great minds think alike!!!!

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Joe,

It is "Wise men think alike".

And another one goes like this... "Fools seldom differ".

Please take this in a lighter vein...