Placing an XNode on the Functions Palette

[paul_cardinale]

I created a handy XNode and placed in on the Functions palette (the same way you place a .VI).  The icon on the palette was the XNode's icon, and everything was OK.  Later I added the "Help" ability; then the icon on the Functions palette became the icon of the "Help" ability VI.  Furthermore, I could no longer place the XNode on a palette.  Deleting the "Help" ability returns everything to normal.  This happens with both LV 2017 & 2018.  I haven't been able to figure out how to correct this.  My guess is that there's something about my "Help" ability that's causing errors inside the Functions palette; but what?  I thought maybe it was because I had an empty path in the Help cluster, but adding a path to a .html file didn't help.  I know it's possible to place an XNode with help on the Functions palette, because you can to that with the Error Ring.  I looked inside "Error Ring.xnode" and saw some items in there that weren't in my XNode; I tried adding equivalent items, but that didn't help.

Does anyone have any ideas on how to fix this?

LVObject MethodSelector.zip

[hooovahh]

I don't fully know what is going on in your situation, but this is one feature NI hasn't talked about but is demonstrated in their own XNodes.  When you look at the Error Ring XNode on the palette you see a green/brown rectangle with the "?!" characters in it.  But if you open this XNode in the XNode Editor from the full path <LabVIEW>\vi.lib\ErrorRing\Error Ring.xnode, then the icon shown for the library isn't the same as the one on the palette.  In NI's case the Help ability for some reason will override the icon in the palette.  This is also seen with the Match Regular Expression.xnode.  I think this is an expected feature but one I'd argue isn't intuitive and doesn't match other things like the Class Icon constant on the block diagram.  We wouldn't want some VI in a class to replace the icon.  If we wanted to update the icon of the constant we'd update the icon in the class.

I don't have a clue on why in your case adding help causes it to not be able to be dropped.  I'd try to set some kind of constant in the Detailed Help for the Image, Bounds, and Terms, which you can get from your other ability VIs by calling them.  Then set the Use Detailed Help to True.  I think this is because the Help ability is called when needing to draw the icon in places like the help window and palette.  I haven't used the Help Ability in any of my XNodes, it's just what I've seen done in others.  Maybe if these aren't set, your XNode has no icon, and is being dropped but is invisible?

[paul_cardinale]

I have determined that none of the existing abilities is called when the .xnode is placed on the palette.

I'm guessing that either it needs another ability that I haven't got, or more likely, a property of an ability, or of the .xnode needs to be different.