Creating an About Dialog Box for a Stand-Alone Application

Most applications have an About dialog box that displays general information about the application and the user or company that designed it. You can create a VI that LabVIEW runs when a user selects Help»About to display information about the stand-alone application you create. After the VI runs, LabVIEW closes the dialog box.

You can have only one About VI per application. If you do not supply an About VI, LabVIEW displays a default dialog box similar to the dialog box that appears in the LabVIEW development system when you select Help»About.

Complete the following steps to create an About VI and include it in a stand-alone application.

  1. Build a VI with a front panel window that contains the information you want to display in the About dialog box, such as the version number, company name, and copyright information. The About VI you create can share subVIs with other VIs you include in the application. However, you cannot use the About VI as a subVI because the About VI cannot run while other VIs in the application run.
Note  The front panel window must include a National Instruments copyright notice. Refer to the National Instruments Software License Agreement located on the LabVIEW Platform media for more information about the requirements for any About dialog box you create for a LabVIEW application.
  1. Build the block diagram of the About VI. For example, if you want the About dialog box to display until the user clicks a button, use a While Loop with an Event structure on the block diagram.
  2. Save the VI. The name of the VI must start with About.
  3. Add the VI to the project from which you are building the application.
  4. When you configure the application build settings, add the About VI to the Always Included list on the Source Files page of the Application Properties dialog box.
  5. From the Source File Settings page, select the About VI in the Project Files tree. In the Use default save settings section, make sure a checkmark does not appear in the Remove front panel checkbox and that the destination is the application.
  6. Configure the remaining application build settings and build the application.