Why doesn't LabVIEW Save All when I ask it to Save All?

[Michael Aivaliotis]

In a typical software application, when you perform a "Save All" action you would expect it to save all of your open documents or working files, right? Not so in LabVIEW. Apparently LabVIEW is not a typical application. Even though I ask LabVIEW to please save all my VI's. It doesn't. I can see that it doesn't because when if I open up a VI that is on the diagram of another visible VI, I see an asterisk in the titlebar indicating that the VI has unsaved changes. In LabVIEW 8.5.1 there are two "save all" menu items, one called "save all" and another called "save all (this project)". I've tried both and neither produces the expected results.

It's possible that the behavior of the "save all" has changed over the last four or five LabVIEW versions. In the past, the "save all" menu function would save ALL vi's in memory. Regardless if the front panel is visible or not. I'm thinking that this is not the case anymore and now LabVIEW only saves VI's with their front panel visible. An exception to this rule is that LabVIEW somehow remembers if you've opened a VI with unsaved changes and then closed it (without saving changes) thus actually saving it when you later perform a "save all".

Is all of this true? If so, then is there any way to perform the old-style "save all"?

[gleichman]

Maybe this changed for better SCC compatibility?

[kevintho]

I'm so glad you mentioned this. I thought I was loosing my mind. During project development, I typically create a "Load All" vi to make certain that all components are loaded into memory and quickly available while modifying code. The Load All vi also serves (or at least it used serve well in previous versions of LabVIEW) as a quick and convenient way to detect vi's that need to be resaved due to either explicit or inexplicit modifications. By closing the Load All vi in previous versions of LV, I would be prompted to save vi's needing to be re-saved. Now, in LabVIEW 8.5, I cannot simply "save all" to flush all changes to disk, nor does LV 8.5 prompt for saving vi's which do not have their front panels open. Now I have to actually open all of the vi's front panels to be sure that they are fully opened in order to ensure they are all up to date. I mentioned this odd behavior to a colleague and he thought I'd been smoking something or functioning in some altered reality. I see now, it is not me, its LV 8.5

Thanks,

KT

[Aristos Queue]

No CARs have been filed matching the situation you describe. For the record, Save All should save all VIs in memory in all projects. Save All (this project) should save everything currently in memory in this project (note: it won't load VIs from disk that aren't in memory but are listed in the project). Any deviance from this behavior is a bug.

I've just run through a bunch of "Save All" tests on a few different hierarchies and I didn't see any problems. Is there any thing special about the particular VIs that aren't being saved? Can you post a set of VIs that demo the bug?

QUOTE (kevintho @ Jul 8 2008, 09:17 PM)

nor does LabVIEW 8.5 prompt for saving vi's which do not have their front panels open.

I know this isn't true. I rely on that every day, and it works just fine... a VI need not have its panel open to generate the Save Changes dialog. Now, if you load a VI using Open VI Ref and then close the ref, you won't be prompted, but straight up closing the panel will indeed throw Save Changes.

Again, if you can post a VI hierarchy that demonstrates the bug, it would be most appreciated.

[Michael Aivaliotis]

QUOTE (Aristos Queue @ Jul 8 2008, 07:43 PM)

Again, if you can post a VI hierarchy that demonstrates the bug, it would be most appreciated.

I can't post the actual VI hierarchy that I'm seeing this in, but I will try to extract some code to see if I can reproduce. Also, I see this behavior in various projects I work with so it's not isolated to one case. This has also been reported to me by other colleagues at JKI so at least I haven't been smoking http://www.marijuana.com/homemade-paraphernalia/76706-making-vaporizer-out-lava-lamp.html' rel='nofollow' target="_blank">LAVA weed or anything.

I have, however come across something else that might help. This behavior seems to only happen with the project environment. I tried opening the VI hierarchy alone without the associated project and the "save all" works as expected.

[LAVA 1.0 Content]

QUOTE (Michael_Aivaliotis @ Jul 9 2008, 03:31 AM)

Not so in LabVIEW. Apparently LabVIEW is not a typical application.

Muhahahahaha

[PJM_labview]

I can confirm what Michael is seeing (not so much using the project environment) but for example when closing a VI tree. Very often doing a save all followed by an attempt to close LV result by a prompt asking me if I want to save a few more VIs...

PJM

[silmaril]

Could this have something to do with the environment-option "Do not save automatic changes"?