I am trying to write a VI to control & read data from 4 different "channels" (each measuring a DUT) at once. I have written all the VI's for initializing instruments, communicating with the devices (VISA, GPIB), setting bias, reading data, etc...that has all completed. I just need to write the overall program with the user interface to allow the user to control these 4 channels & display the measured data.....as it turns out, this is the tricky part! My head is spinning from trying to figure out how to handle all the possible events. :)
Basically for each channel, I want the user to be able to
-enable/disable it for measurement (e.g. if there is no device loaded in Ch.3, we don't want to measure Ch.3..maybe disable/grey everything)
-set bias conditions (only if channel enabled). Allow user to change bias "in real-time" by increment/decrementing (e.g. incrementing from 5.00 V to 5.01 V, for example).
-turn biasing on/off (again, only if channel is enabled)
Also, I want each channel to display its measured data (e.g current, temperature reading)..every second or so. No graphs or anything fancy (for now! :)), just numeric indicator.
Honestly, this all sounds so simple but I'm having trouble figuring out the best way to implement this, due to the fact that 1) there are multiple channels needing to be monitored for events 2) large number of user events that could occur (seems like at least 4 per channel - enabling/disabling, turning bias on/off, incrementing/decrementing bias values, etc ), Also the if a channel IS enabled, i want to be continously reading/displaying the data. What is the best way to handle this? Should i have 4 separate while loops, each with an event structure to handle events for that particular channel..or will that give me grief somewhre?
Also, I have another nagging question. Pretty much all the examples I see re: Event Structures and booleans involve latched booleans, eg. buttons that are just pressed once and pop back up...e.g. buttons you press to tell it to complete a task (e.g. "Acquire Data" or "Stop") , and once it's pressed it's over and reset. In my case, some of the booleans would not be latched...e.g. the "Enable Ch.2" button would be 'TRUE" as long as i want Ch. 2 to be read....does that make sense? Then, say hours later, if i did want to disable that channel, i would change it to "FALSE" and while that would be an "value change", the new value would not be "TRUE"..does that make sense? So not sure if that would be dealt with the same way in an Event Structure.
Hope this all makes sense and many thanks in advance for any help!!! :)