Control in Driver Station/Dashboard

[Dexterium]

Is there a way to have a control in either the dashboard or the driver station. What i want is a way to control a numeric value while using a build project. I know that you can have indicators on them but can you have controls , and if so how do i do it

[Greg McKaskle]

The driver station I/O tab has a number of numerics that are used as indicators if the FT is plugged in. If it is not plugged in, they become controls and the value is automatically sent to the robot. This is in compatibility mode.

As pointed out by some of the beta teams, all languages now implement Network Tables/Smart Dashboard protocol, and that makes it much easier for the dashboard to both display and control values. In the new system, you place the numeric into the Operation tab and label it with the variable name. Then you read it on the robot. The dashboard automatically synchs up all controls and indicators with the robot.


Greg McKaskle

[DominickC]

So, if I understand what you've said correctly, we no longer need to employ TCP/UDP to send, let's say a custom numerical control on the Dashboard, to the cRIO?

[Fifthparallel]

You will, but under the guise of Network Tables finally being implemented for Labview and the new "Labview" Smart Dashboard. The SmartDashboard palette for 2013 will have get/send like operations for sending different kinds of data to/from Dashboard/cRio.

[Greg McKaskle]

The SmartDashboard is built on top of NetworkTables, and that is built upon TCP. So you are free to dig into the implementation or do your own, but you may find it easier and more reliable to use the SmartDashboard to share data in both directions. That means you can easily publish a robot value to the dashboard, and you can easily have it read a value to impact autonomous or teleop execution.

Greg McKaskle