Help getting started with LABView

[GHLabTech]

Hi everyone. I am a technician in the quality lab of an electronics manufacturing company. They are sending me to the LABView Core 1 & 2 classes next month. In the meantime I would like to build up a rudimentary knowledge base so I don't come in completely clueless. I am have no programming experience whatsoever. Can someone help me get started, I want to write a program that will count joystick actuations as it is cycled on a life tester. It has four outputs, and whenever a joystick is actuated in a certain direction that corresponding output is pulled 'low'. The normal state of the outputs is 'high'. I'm pretty much starting from scratch here and if someone can give me a push in the right direction I'd really appreciate it.

[Dennis_Knutson]

There is an on-line LabVIEW basics and if you will be using an NI DAQ board to acquire the signals, you might want to check out the DAQmx Getting Started tutorial. DAQmx is the name of the driver for the cards.

[GHLabTech]

Is there any way I can convert a boolean signal into a square wave? Since when a position is actuated the data goes into a low state I figure I can use an edge counter to count actuations if I create a square wave. This is what I'm thinking now, does any one else have a more efficient idea to count actuations of a switch?

[F._Schubert]

There is a 'Boolean Array to Digital Waveform'.vi (I don't know the exact name).

Felix

[GHLabTech]

Ok I figured out a different way to count actuations using a shift register rather than an edge counter. As for my next question. How can I build a counter that counts 'cycles'? As in, my tester always actuates in the same order, up-left-down-right, so how to I get my program to count when an entire cycle has occured, in that specific order? Here is a copy of my program thus far if it helps.