Why put Custom Probes in LabVIEW Data folder?

[Jim Kring]

There is a fundamental flaw with having custom probes stored inside the "~/LabVIEW Data/Probes/" folder (for example, "My Documents\LabVIEW Data\Probes" in Windows XP).

:!: All versions of LabVIEW installed on your machine share the same custom probes folder.

:!: If you have both 7.0 and 7.1 installed and you accidently save your probe in 7.1, it will no longer work in 7.0. All I can hope for, is that the custom probes path is not hard-coded into LabVIEW and some secret INI key will allow us to redefine the default probes storage location.

However there might be a work-around. Here are some behaviors that I noticed:

* the probes folder is searched *each time* you right click on a wire and select the "Custom Probe" submenu.

* the probes folder is searched recursively, including all searchable subfolders

* subfolders will be excluded from the search, if their name begins in an underscore ("_") character.

Here is a possible solution:

Create subfolders for each LabVIEW version.

~/LabVIEW Data/Probes/7.0

~/LabVIEW Data/Probes/7.1

~/LabVIEW Data/Probes/7.2

~/LabVIEW Data/Probes/8.0

~/LabVIEW Data/Probes/8.1

Create a VI that renames all subfolders for LV Version != Running LV Version. For example, if we are running LabVIEW 7.1 the VI would rename the Probes subdirectories so that they were the following:

~/LabVIEW Data/Probes/_7.0

~/LabVIEW Data/Probes/7.1

~/LabVIEW Data/Probes/_7.2

~/LabVIEW Data/Probes/_8.0

~/LabVIEW Data/Probes/_8.1

Now, only the 7.1 subfolder will be searched for custom probes.

The VI may either be menu-launched (for example, from the "Tools" menu) or perhaps, registered to run automatically when LabVIEW launches (using lv_init.vi).

Any other ideas or thoughts?

[Michael Aivaliotis]

Ok Jim. However, one thing I don't understand is that when I launch the new probe wizard, I can specify any directory and location to save a new probe (LV7.1). Well apparently, LV has an ini setting called:

ProbeIniCache="path to probe"

Everytime you create a custom probe that does not reside in the default location, LV adds one of these entries for every custom probe. Perhaps you can use this feature somehow.

[Jim Kring]

It appears that the probes folder inherits its location from the 'LabVIEW Data' (aka "Default Data Directory") directory. So, I guess that it is a good practice for developers with more that one LabVIEW version installed to change this setting to a version specific folder, such as:

*********** labview.ini ***********

DefaultDataFileLocation=C:\Documents and Settings\%user%\My Documents\LabVIEW 7.1 Data

********************************

The Probes default folder is determined by the Data directory defined

within LabVIEW.  This can be changed in the following manner:

1.  From within LabVIEW select "Tools->Options..."

2.  Choose "Paths" from the drop down box at the top of the Options dialog.

3.  Select "Default Data Directory" from the Paths drop down box.

4.  Deselect the "Use default" checkbox and define a new directory to use.

5.  Restart LabVIEW and now new probes will be saved in your newly defined

directory.

Please let me know if you have any more questions about this issue.

[Mike Ashe]

:!: All versions of LabVIEW installed on your machine share the same custom probes folder.

:!: If you have both 7.0 and 7.1 installed and you accidently save your probe in 7.1, it will no longer work in 7.0.  All I can hope for, is that the custom probes path is not hard-coded into LabVIEW and some secret INI key will allow us to redefine the default probes storage location.

3321[/snapback]

This bit me a couple of times between 7.0 and 7.1 I thought about doing the directory swapping bit but then stopped using 7.0 much. I agree that this is a problem.

Thanks to Michael for the INI file notes and Jim for passing along the NI support reply. This helps.

[brian175]

:!: All versions of LabVIEW installed on your machine share the same custom probes folder.

I was searching the forums and found this topic. I realize that it is old but the obvious solution isn't present so I thought I would add it just in case others are still having the same problem. The anwser is to store your custom probes in the ..\user.lib\_probes\default directory of the LabVIEW version you created the probe with. Of course you still need to "Save with options" and save it for previous versions of LabVIEW to have it available in all your LabVIEW versions. Or you could just right click in Explorer (Windows only) and select the "Save for prevous" option that will be available in the soon to be released next version of the DataAct Version Chooser.