LabVIEW for PhD

I am not an expert in LabVIEW and I self-learned it through YouTube videos, documents, and forum discussions. If you want to learn LabVIEW so you can remotely control your instruments, save data, and even do data analysis, you can also go through those videos and forum discussions.

The important thing in any programming is learning the lingo. If you can carefully draft your Google search, you will find something relevant to your doubt/query. For example, if you want to end your while loop after some instrument flashes the error. You have to google ‘LabVIEW, error, end, while loop, condition’, you will get relevant information in the first or second article. If you google ‘Instrument error, LabVIEW running, how to stop’, you will get answers but you have to fish out the correct one relevant to you. You have to type the words of the lyrics to find a song. Simply typing ‘dunn taa nanana naa’ may not give you the right song*. If you are too lazy to read the articles, go to videos if you find something relevant there. There are not many tutorials video on LabVIEW so maximum information is available in official LabVIEW documents and forum discussions.

How to learn Lingo? This is slightly simple in LabVIEW since it provides the ‘Context help’, a yellow question mark on the right upper corner in the block diagram screen (the white one!). If you select any component on the block diagram and click this button, it will give you a brief idea. For further knowledge, you can click on ‘Detailed help’ below the explanation. In the initial phase, detailed explanation would not make much sense, but have a habit of clicking it so that you get familiar with ‘lingo’.

Initially, in the block diagram screen (the white one!), if you right-click, you will see the functions pallet. There, you will get many sections such as Structure, Array, Numeric, Boolean, String, Comparison, timing etc. Initially, try to play with Structure, Array, Numeric, and Comparison. The structures will have different types of loops among which 'For loop' and 'While loop' are simple ones. Drag them on the screen; click Context Help and try to find their functioning. Or simply type ‘LabVIEW, for loop’ on youtube. Watch the videos and learn from there. Slowly you can start with other functions.

I will keep posting the links for tutorials and discussions. Thank you and best of luck.