The following table provides design considerations for developing RT target VIs you intend to display using the embedded UI or remote front panel connections. In general, you should keep UI updates outside of time-critical loops to prevent negative effects on determinism. Also keep in mind that enabling the embedded UI affects determinism. The additional jitter should remain acceptable for most applications, but if you want to guarantee the best determinism for your system, disable the embedded UI.

Place Front Panel Controls and Indicators Outside of Time-Critical Loops Updating front panel controls and indicators within time-critical loops negatively affects determinism.
Place Property Nodes Outside of Time-Critical Loops Updating property nodes within time-critical loops negatively affects determinism.
Do Not Enable the Synchronous Display Property Enabling the synchronous display property for controls and indicators negatively affects determinism.
Allow Time for the UI to Update The code that updates the front panel display executes at a lower priority than code inside timed structures. You may notice delays in front panel updates when time-critical code utilizes the majority of the available RT target resources. To prevent these delays, specify sufficient duration for the periods of timed structures so that time-critical code does not utilize all of the allocated resources during a cycle.

Display Parity

Due to differences between operating systems, front panel elements, such as fonts and controls, may look different when you display them on the embedded UI or through a remote front panel connection than when you display them on your host computer. Visit ni.com/info and enter DisplayParity to learn more about display parity across operating systems.

Language Support on the Embedded UI

The embedded UI does not support localized versions of the Real-Time Module. Therefore, to use the embedded UI, ensure that both your host computer and RT target use the English versions of the Real-Time Module.

Xfce and the Embedded UI

NI uses Xfce to create the embedded UI for RT targets. Xfce is a collection of components that provides a lightweight desktop environment for UNIX-like operating systems. To learn about using and configuring Xfce, refer to the Xfce help available on the Xfce website.

Embedded UI Template

Visit ni.com/info and enter RTUITemplate to access an application that demonstrates a producer/consumer design pattern with embedded UI functionality.

Unsupported Features on the Embedded UI

In addition to the unsupported features of each RT target, the embedded UI does not support the following LabVIEW features. In most cases, you will not find these features on the applicable palette when you enable the embedded UI. If an existing VI includes these features, the VI will not run when you enable the embedded UI.

  • Subpanels
  • XControls
  • 3D graphs
  • 3D Picture Control VIs