I was reading through a very thorough document here: File Handling Guidelines.
However it does not work for me. I keep getting the following dialog when I double-click a file:


I've built the app in LV8.0 and I'm using the exe launcher trick.

Are you able to execute

"C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 8.2\labview.exe" "c:\path\to\myfile.lava"

Post a copy of your windows registry so that it's easier to help you debug

But seriously, some examples of your key/values would help. I'll bet you're just missing some quotes around your paths.

...and before you jump on it, I tried putting the "c:\hello.exe" in quotes as well but it didn't help.

Hmmm, my guess is that customfile.lava is not a valid LabVIEW file (that's what the error message says).

If you have a non-LabVIEW file that you want your exe stub to handle, you need to pass it as a user-defined command-line argument, according to LabVIEW conventions (pass it after the double hyphen "--").

Ok, thanks Jim . This all makes sense now. The original document I referenced is out of date at this point since several key elements are missing. I should of read the NI help. My problem was I did not have (--) and I did not even have the Builder flag set either. Both wrong.

I recently stumbled upon an application event that looks like this:
Application.OS Open Document, it is called when LabVIEW tries to open a non-LV document,

I've tested it, and it works!!!

One downside, the first call to the exe will result in an error of LabVIEW claiming it is a non-LV file, consequitive calls work great!

Included a project (with exe) that shows the work. You have to register the tonfile.reg file, copy the exe into c:\tonfile, the open one of the two *.ton files, the first will show an error , however clicking the file again will load the path into the VI

Ton
 FileLoader.zip ( 41.2K ) Number of downloads: 121

Ton,

That's a great find! Does it work for files sent with DDE (after the App is already running)?

I wonder if there is any way to suppress the error message.

Thanks,

[UPDATE 1] Yes, it works when the app is already running. Very cool!

[UPDATE 2] I just figured out that the error message only appears when the application is passed the file path via the command-line argument (when app is first launched). The error does not occur when the files are sent via DDE. For example, if you launch the app manually and then double-click your files, there is no error message.

[UPDATE 3] I figured out how to get everything to work. Use the following registry settings: (The double hypen "--" makes the file path a "user argument" and thus suppresses the error message. Setting the ddeexec = open(%1) makes the DDE work right.)

EDIT: see next post

This post has been edited by tcplomp: Mar 3 2007, 07:43 PM

See my 3rd update to my previous posting for a fully working solution

Also, it's worth mentioning that this OS Open Document Application Event is exposed when you have the SuperSecretPrivateSpecialStuff=True setting in your LabVIEW.ini file. And, this feature first appeared in LabVIEW 8.2.

Allright, who is gonna buy who a beer

I figured a little more out, setting the registry with this options:

You don't need the command line arguments, windows will launch the program via command, and will set up a DDE connection with (open(%1)), and the event is triggered!
Notice that the open\command does not include %1!
The whole code is:

Ton

This post has been edited by tcplomp: Mar 3 2007, 07:27 PM