PanelView Plus CE - Activex and Program Launcher

[paul@work]

Hi All
I'm new. Nice site you have here.
I hate to start right in on the crying but here it comes.

My goal is to place various help buttons in my PanelView Plus CE application which will launch a relevant .pdf document or .mpg video.

I'm working with activex and program launcher for the first time and I'm running into some difficulty.

I've been running test applications on my laptop and so far I've been able to get a button to launch a "test.txt" file with Notepad using the following.
ME Program Launcher Properties
ProgramLocation - "C:\Windows\system32\notepad.exe"
ProgramParameter - "C:\Documents and Settings\MyLaptop\My Documents\Test1.txt"
FocusEnable - 0
LaunchEnable - {[CTLX_1]Test1}
NewInstance - 0

Great it works! Now I want to do the same thing with a .pdf

ME Program Launcher Properties
ProgramLocation - "C:\Program Files\Adobe\Reader 8.0\Reader\AcroRd32.exe"
ProgramParameter - "C:\Documents and Settings\MyLaptop\My Documents\Test2.pdf"
FocusEnable - 0
LaunchEnable - {[CTLX_1]Test2}
NewInstance - 0

I made another button and used the same approach. Adobe reader launches but doesn't open my "test.pdf" file. Instead it gives me a "There was an error opening this document. This file cannot be found." message.

I checked and double checked. The file is definitely there and my path is correct.

So my questions are...

Can I open a specific .pdf file from my application or will it just open the reader?

Can you see what I'm doing wrong here?

I also tried the same approach with Media Player and an .mpg video.
Media Player launches but doesn't open my test file and there is no error message.

I hope this all makes sense. If someone could help me out or point me in the right direction it would be much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
Paul

 

[paul@work]

I got it.

with help.​

After searching through previous posts on this site I found this one from arist3​

This link was a big help.

Thanks arist3.​

arist3
Member

Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Napa
Posts: 1



This Rockwell knowledge base article should have what you need.

20474 - Program Launcher ActiveX Control for FactoryTalk View (RSView) ME Station.

 

[Valley Ind]

Paul,


It has been some years since you posted so I hope you are still around.

I am trying to recreate your ProgramLauncher application.

I see where you got it to open Notepad. When I try to do the same I get this message on my PanelView: Failed to start "c:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe"

I have used ProgramLauncher to open Foxit PDF viewer on the PanelView and oprn a PDF file, but I can't get it to open notepad on the PC.

I have a Tag for the ProgramLocation property: TestTags_Adobe\AdobeLocation
And it contents is: "C:\Windows\System32\notepad.exe"
quotes and all

The LaunchEnable property is: TestTags_Adobe\LaunchEnable
And its contents is: 0

I am not using the ProgramParameter property .

I have a momentary push button to cause the LaunchEnable Tag to go from a 0 to a 1 while it is being pressed.



Any ideas of what might be wrong?

Thank you

 

[nmurray]

I actually just did a batch file form the ProgramLauncher today.
get rid of the C: when I was opening command prompt all I typed in was "\Windows\System32\cmd.exe"