National Instruments Corporation

Jeff D Washington

Paul F Austin

Adam K Gabbert

A system and method for creating a graphical program including a plurality of portions to be executed sequentially. User input may be received, e.g., during development of the graphical program, wherein the user input indicates a desire to specify a plurality of portions of graphical source code to be executed sequentially. In response, a plurality of frames may be displayed in the graphical program, such that two or more frames from the plurality of frames are visible at the same time. A portion of graphical source code may be included in each frame in response to user input. The plurality of frames may define an execution order for the corresponding portions of graphical source code, such that during execution of the graphical program, the portions of graphical source code are executed sequentially according to this execution order. In the preferred embodiment, all of the frames are visible at the same time, thus giving the program developer a complete view of the graphical program.

System and method for creating a graphical program including a plurality of portions to be executed sequentially

A container independent method for editing a control, wherein changes may be viewed and evaluated prior to applying the changes to the control. The method comprises a user dropping a control onto a form of a container, such as Visual Basic. When the user drops the control, the container constructs the control. The control comprises a standard interface, preferably Active X, compliant portion and internal control object portions. When the container constructs the control it constructs the standard interface compliant control. Upon being constructed, the standard interface compliant control constructs a first internal control object referenced by an original pointer. The first internal control object comprises the data for the control. The standard interface compliant control provides a means of redirecting methods invoked upon the control through the standard interface to the internal control object referenced by the original pointer. Thus the control selectively redirects method invocations upon internal control objects by modifying the original pointer. When the user selects the control for an editing transaction the standard interface compliant control creates a second internal control object which is a copy of the first internal control object, creates a property page dialog, creates a preview window and displays the second control object in the preview window. The user makes changes to the control, either via the property page dialog or via direct graphical interaction with the copy of the control displayed in the preview window. These changes are reflected in the control displayed in the preview window, but not in the form window. The user edits the control as desired in the preview window and apply the changes or cancels the changes. If the user applies the changes, the standard interface compliant control creates a third internal control object which is a copy of the second internal control object, that is which reflects the user changes, and assigns the original pointer to reference the third internal control object. The standard interface compliant control then discards the first internal control object. If the user cancels the changes, the second internal control object, the preview window and property page dialog are discarded.

System and method for editing a control

A method for editing an OLE control comprises a user dragging an icon representation of the control and dropping the control onto a form of a container which contains OLE controls, such as Visual Basic. When the user drops the control, the container constructs the control and displays the control in the form. When a user selects the control for an editing transaction the control creates a property page dialog, creates a preview window and displays the control in the preview window. The user makes changes to the control via the property page dialog. The property page dialog invokes a method on the control to display the control with the changes reflected in the preview window so that the user can see the effect of the changes on the control. The display method is an alternate method to the standard display method defined by the interface between the container and the control. Preferably the alternate display method receives additional input parameters which contain information describing the changes. The control's data is not modified and thus the changes are not reflected in the control displayed in the form window until the user applies the changes. The user edits the control as desired in the preview window and applies the changes or cancels the changes. If the user applies the changes, the control's data is updated to reflect the changes. If the user cancels the changes, the preview window and property page dialog are discarded. Thus, an improved container independent method for editing a control, wherein changes may be viewed and evaluated prior to applying the changes to the control is described.

System and method for editing a control utilizing a preview window to view changes made to the control

A method for editing an OLE control wherein changes may be made to the control in a direct graphically interactive manner. The user drags an icon representation of the control and drops the control onto a form of a container which supports OLE controls, such as Visual Basic. When the user drops the control, the container constructs the control. When the user selects the control for an editing transaction the control creates a property page dialog and displays the control in the property page dialog. The user makes changes directly to the control displayed in the property page dialog with an input device, such as a mouse. These changes are applied to the control's data and are thus reflected in the control displayed in the preview window and in the form window. The method is particularly useful for setting initial run-time values of controls.

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Round Rock, TX, United States of America

Jeff D Washington