How Can I Launch an External Web Browser from LabWindows™/CVI™?

Updated Dec 6, 2019

Reported In

Software

  • LabWindows/CVI

Operating System

  • Windows

Issue Details

I would like to launch an external web browser (e.g. Chrome, Firefox, Opera, etc) from LabWindows™/CVI™. Is there a way to do this?

Solution

To launch an external application, you can use the LaunchExecutableEx function. This function runs a program and returns without waiting for the program to exit. There is an example that ships with LabWindows™/CVI™ where you can check how to use the function mentioned before. The example can be found in Help >> Find Examples... >> Communicating with External Applications >> Operating Systems >> launchexe.cws.


Another option is using the ShellExecuteEx() function available in the Windows SDK. For more information on interfacing with the Win32 API, you can read the article Using the Win32 API in LabWindows™/CVI™.

Additional Information

You can also implement a Microsoft Web Browser Active X in a LabWindows™/CVI™ panel. An example of this can be found in Help >> Find Examples... >> Communicating with External Applications >> ActiveX >> WebBrowser.cws.

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