Project specific palette

[Daklu]

When working on a project I use the project explorer window to drag and drop vis onto the bd I'm working on. If the project is large it can take a lot of scrolling and clicking to get to the VI I need. Has anyone ever implemented a project-specific palette?

[Aristos Queue]

When working on a project I use the project explorer window to drag and drop vis onto the bd I'm working on. If the project is large it can take a lot of scrolling and clicking to get to the VI I need. Has anyone ever implemented a project-specific palette?

I'm not sure I understand the goal. Given that you (like myself) use the project as a palette, what would you put in this project-specific palette? If it is anything autogenerated, wouldn't it just be the project, and thus would get as large as the project window already is?

[jgcode]

When working on a project I use the project explorer window to drag and drop vis onto the bd I'm working on. If the project is large it can take a lot of scrolling and clicking to get to the VI I need. Has anyone ever implemented a project-specific palette?

Yep, I use the project in the same way and I run into the same problem.

I use the OpenG tool - Locate In Project a lot.

Normally it's for locating a class in the project i.e. if I have a method VI on the BD and I want to get to another method in that class quickly.

I did a Quick Drop tool for auto creating class palettes, that was handy because the palette shows up e.g. if you right click a method on the BD.

But I have not down a project specific one.

[Daklu]

If it is anything autogenerated, wouldn't it just be the project, and thus would get as large as the project window already is?

Yep, if it autogenerates a palette for the entire project it would be just as cumbersome... but with the added benefit that I can pin specific palettes and have VIs from different parts of the project at my fingertips at the same time. That may or may not work well in practice; I'd have to try it out.

What I would really like is a true dynamic palette--a buffed up Favorites palette that works via drag-and-drop and allows subpalettes. When I drag a vi from my project folder on the palette the vi becomes part of the palette. If I drop a class or library, all subpalettes are automatically created and populated. And if I were really cheeky I'd ask for the palette to be associated with a project and automatically load when the project is opened.

Is something like this even possible via scripting? I have not done much scripting and I haven't dug around trying to figure out how the palettes work at all. I'm pretty sure there aren't any hooks available to automatically save and load the project palette with the project itself, so I guess it's a good thing I'm not that cheeky.

I use the OpenG tool - Locate In Project a lot.

I had that installed once but never used it. Maybe I'll load it up and try it again. I will say constantly moving my right hand between my mouse and keyboard gets annoying. It's one of the few things that really annoys me about Labview that doesn't have a solution.

I did a Quick Drop tool for auto creating class palettes, that was handy because the palette shows up e.g. if you right click a method on the BD.

I think I remember some discussion about that. Did you ever make it public? I didn't see it in the CR, though there is another entry that appears to do something similar.

[jgcode]

I think I remember some discussion about that. Did you ever make it public? I didn't see it in the CR, though there is another entry that appears to do something similar.

Nah, I didn't. I was playing with this last year, and haven't gone back to it due to the fact I have been working mostly in 7.x since the start of this year

(I could be wrong - this is off the top of my head) I have seen the other one in LAVA (by Gavin B I think?) and it was good, I think it could create menu hierarchies (child, parent etc...) but it was static.

I was trying a dynamic approach - i.e. you are coding, you add a data-member, smash the quick drop shortcut and voila! The palette would update with the new VI.

One of the problems I encountered was that the .mnu file would get corrupt once in a blue moon for some reason. I tried to fix it (in my code notes it says I did a workaround). If it still happens I could get around this possibly by deleting then recreating the menu file each time, but I was trying to optimise it.

It just uses a bit of scripting and the MNU API.

I was planning on posting it to LAVA though (one day ) so it was in a good state - I just added the readme file today and reran the build script.

When you load the examples make sure they are not read-only. (This is in the readme)

If you (or anyone) could let me know what you think that would be great!

library_palette_manager-1.0.1-1_LV2009.zip

On the flip site, I do find it easier to navigate using the project/library/class layouts because I categorise the layout the way I want with virtual folders. You could mimic this with palettes but it may be a bit of work. Having to look at all VIs in a palette can be a bit harder!

[Yair]

Two relevant points -

1. In 2009, Quick Drop also indexes VIs from the current project, so you can use that to drop VIs from the project.
2. Modern versions (I believe it started in 2009) have the locate in project feature built-in, so there's no longer a need to install the OpenG version. If memory serves, it can be found in the File menu and I believe it has Ctrl+Shift+E assigned as a shortcut.