Support TestStand Engine Events Using LabVIEW Dynamic Event Registration

[Mr._Jim]

Hi folks,

When writing TestStand UI components using LabVIEW, there are a lot of scenarios where using a callback VI to handle a TestStand event is the right move. As of writing this, that's the only way.

There have also been plenty of times when I would have preferred to handle a TestStand event directly within a LabVIEW event structure. In these kinds of scenarios my code would be less complicated if we had the ability to directly register TestStand engine events with LabVIEW's "Register for Events" node.

Years ago when learning TestStand, I tried to do this out of intuition and I was kind of surprised that it wasn't supported.

Below is an illustration of what I'm proposing.

[Kiwi-wires]

I once (~10 years ago) tired to modify the LabVIEW basic operator interface ( I wanted to simplify UI even further). It was a huge PITA.

What I wanted was a shortcut on test PC desktop with command line parameters to load and run a test sequence. (So operator did not have to select the sequence to run), but I could have a generic UI. 

I remember I struck problems with command line, and the buttons like terminate.  I didn't think what I wanted to do was too complicated, but there were lots of subtle dependencies. The comments in the example made it seem easier than it was. I got so frustrated at one point, I reverted back to the original NI code, and started again, with no luck. Rather than remove UI elements I didn't want, I tried just dragging them outside the window. 

I am happy using callbacks, (My first callback code was using OPOS for a barcode scanner - to avoid issues with modal dialogs by avoiding using the keyboard emulator).  Just grabbing a operator interface and trying to modify was not as easy as I expected 10 years ago. Your suggestion is a step in the right direction. I hope it ends up improving the TestStand API and simplifying the example code.