Summary: In this section, you will learn about documentation resources.
Use the Context Help window, the LabVIEW
Help, and the NI Example Finder to help you build and
edit VIs. Refer to the LabVIEW Help and manuals
for more information about LabVIEW.
The
Context Help window displays basic information
about LabVIEW objects when you move the cursor over each
object. The Context Help window is visible by
default. To toggle display of the Context Help
window, select Help>>Show Context Help, press
the Ctrl-H keys, or click the Show
Context Help Window button, shown in Media 1, on the toolbar.
When you move the cursor over front panel and block diagram
objects, the Context Help window displays the
icon for subVIs, functions, constants, controls, and
indicators, with wires attached to each terminal. When you
move the cursor over dialog box options, the Context
Help window displays descriptions of those
options. In the window, required connections are bold,
recommended connections are plain text, and optional
connections are dimmed or do not appear. Figure 1
shows an example Context Help window.
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Click the Hide Optional Terminals and Full Path
button located on the lower left corner of the Context
Help window to display the optional terminals of a
connector pane and to display the full path to a
VI. Optional terminals are shown by wire stubs, informing
you that other connections exist. The detailed mode displays
all terminals, as shown in Figure 2.
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Click the Lock Context Help button to lock the
current contents of the Context Help
window. When the contents are locked, moving the cursor over
another object does not change the contents of the
window. To unlock the window, click the button again. You
also can access this option from the Help menu.
If a corresponding LabVIEW Help topic exists
for an object the Context Help window
describes, a blue Click here for more help.
link appears in the Context Help window. Also,
the More Help button, shown at left, is
enabled. Click the link or the button to display the
LabVIEW Help for more information about the
object.
You can access the LabVIEW Help either by
clicking the More Help button in the
Context Help window, selecting Help>>VI,
Function, & How-To Help, or clicking the blue
Click here for more help. link in the
Context Help window.
The LabVIEW Help contains detailed descriptions of most palettes, menus, tools, VIs, and functions. The LabVIEW Help also includes step-by-step instructions for using LabVIEW features. The LabVIEW Help includes links to the following resources:
The New dialog box contains many LabVIEW
template VIs that you can use to start building
VIs. However, these template VIs are only a subset of the
hundreds of example VIs included with LabVIEW. You can
modify any example VI to fit an application, or you can copy
and paste from an example into a VI that you create.
In addition to the example VIs that ship with LabVIEW, you
also can access hundreds of example VIs on the NI
Developer Zone at ni.com/zone. To search
all examples using LabVIEW VIs, use the NI Example
Finder. The NI Example Finder is the
gateway to all installed examples and the examples located
on the NI Developer Zone.
To launch the NI Example Finder, select
Help>>Find Examples from the front panel or
block diagram menu bar. You also can launch the NI
Example Finder by clicking the arrow on the
Open button on the LabVIEW dialog box and
selecting Examples from the shortcut menu.
"A full introductory course on programming with LabVIEW."