INSTRUCTIONS FOR ACCESSING LABVIEW CONTROLS WITH TACOSILVIA:


TacoSilvia means TACO Server Interfacing Labview Virtual Instrument Applications 
It represents a GUI application built with Qt and allows communication with arbitrary 
Labview Virtual Instruments(VIs) by means of getting and setting the control and indicator 
values of the VI. It uses the TACO communication mechanism to interface Labview applications. 
   
The TACO/LV-wrappers are strongly tied to a corresponding particular Labview VI that itself 
loads the VI to be controlled remotely and it is able to handle TACO client requests in 
Labview context. In that context, this pair acts as the TACO Device Server whereas another 
class is responsible for the client side: <b>LabviewClient</b>.  The LabviewClient class 
encapsulates the communication with labview via TACO and does all the type conversion and 
checking. 

TacoSilvia just delegates the requests to that class in order to contact labview.
Once a connection has been established (the device server has been imported) the 
controls (and the indicators too) of the selected virtual instrument can be listed 
and modified using the GUI functionality.   

NOTE:
If you don't have Qt installed on your system you may still use the LabviewClient class
via command line. Start ./lv_menu and select the desired command from the list.
 


1) Run Your Labview VI and start the Labview TACO Server 
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- Start Labview and open the Taco-Labview-Client application (LVTacoSelectViRemote.vi).

1.1) Local VI Access: 
- In the upper panel choose the directory where your VI is located via FileChooserDialog.
- Press <Update>, select your VI from the pulldown-list and run it via <Run> button.

1.2) Remote VI Access: 
- Enter the machine name of the remote machine in the server list on the lower panel
- Open the VI Server(Server.vi) on the corresponding machine. 
- Insert the desired VI in the export list and run the application. 
- After pressing <Update> the exported VIs should appear in the list now. 
- Select the VI from the list and press <Run>. 
Note: When you run the VI from within the Panel, the adequate TACO Server is exported automatically. 

2) Import The Device And Access VI Controls
---------------------------------------------
- Start TacoSilvia
- In the TacoSilvia GUI just click <Import Device>. 

2.1) List the Controls: 

- Retrieve a list of the available controls and indicators by pressing <GetControlList> 
- Once listed, you can set and get the values of the controls and indicators in various ways.

2.2) Get a value (control OR indicator):
- Press the <GetControlValue> or the <GetIndicatorValue>button 
- Select the corresponding Pull-Down Menu Item
- Press the adequate Toolbar Icon.
- Let the data automatically be retrieved by activating the <Update> facility.

2.3) Set a value (only control):
- Double-click on an entry in the control list and fill in the value field. 
- Select the control in the list and press the <SetControlValue> button. 
- Select the corresponding Pull-Down Menu Item.
- Press the adequate Toolbar Icon.

3) Synchronize Data 
---------------------
- If desired, the control values are regularly synchronized with labview. 
- Just mark the checkbox and enter the interval at which synchronization should occur.
- The control data is then retrieved automatically at regular intervals.

