LabVIEW Developers Feature Brainstorming

[Noel]

Hello:

As many of you know, the Tools>>Options dialog box allows you to easily control options specified in the LabVIEW.INI file. With each release of LabVIEW, we steadily increase the amount of available options to customize LabVIEW environment. We added over 15 block diagram options since LabVIEW 5.x and only removed a small handful.

As we introduce new features, we provide more and more configurable options to satisfy different development styles or interests. However, the proliferation of options can prove confusing. It becomes difficult to distinguish between widely-used options and ones that are applicable only to a small set of customers.

In order to gain a better sense of how customers use the settings in the Tools>>Options dialog box, I would like to collect as many customer INI files as possible. This will allow me to analyze option usage and improve the usability of the Tools>>Options dialog box.

Please help by sending your INI file(s) to the following email address along with answers to a few simple questions. The more INI files, the better. Therefore, encourage your colleagues to send their INI files, too! If you are a MacOS or Linux user, attach your LabVIEW Preferences or .labviewrc file.

Send to: lvsubfile@ni.com

1. What is the first version of LabVIEW that you used?
2. When upgrading to a new version of LabVIEW, do you copy the LabVIEW.INI file from the older version of LabVIEW to the newer version of LabVIEW?
3. When launching a new version of LabVIEW, do you immediately change any particular settings in the Tools>>Options dialog box? If so, which ones?
4. When upgrading to a new version of LabVIEW, do you review the New and Changed page in the Tools>>Options dialog box?
5. Which options are you the most passionate about? Please provide a brief reason for each.
6. Do you have any suggestions to improve the usability of the Tools>>Options dialog box?

Please do not forget to attach your LabVIEW.INI file.

Thank you,

Noel Adorno

LabVIEW R&D

[TiTou]

Hi,

Speaking of INI settings...

Does anyone know what happened to the MRU folders option ?

Was it intentionally removed by NI ? If so, why ?

Has it just stopped working when LV 8.5 came out for some unclear reason ?

Is there any chance it comes back in the futur ?

:-o

[TrevorChristman]

TiTou,

  I have recently acquired responsibility for the recently used files list in LabVIEW.  I am not aware of any INI settings related to the recently used files lists which stopped working in LV 8.5.

  Can you please clarify for me the name of the INI token, and what it used to do?

  Thanks,

  -Trevor Christman

[TCPlomp]

I would like a feature that removes any palette info from the INI-file, this way I get clean palettes (I mean the positioning).

A good idea might be storing the info in a more structures INI-file (more headers).

For the options-dialog I would like to add the 'exclude user.lib from SCC-includes' option (similar to vi.lib and instr.lib).

It's the MRU-folders=true token. This was added by Darren Nattinger as a easter egg (a very usefull one), and stopped working in LabVIEW or 8.5 (it even got a CAR 113669).

Ton

Message Edited by TonP on 08-29-2008 08:01 PM

[TrevorChristman]

Thank you for the clarification.  I had misunderstood the use of 'recent' in Most Recently Used.  My comments refered to the "File -> Recent Files ->" pull-right in LabVIEW.  The MRU-folders token interacts with the 'File -> Open' dialog by informing the windows registry when you use LabVIEW to open a folder on disk.

[Darren]

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TonP wrote:

It's the MRU-folders=true token. This was added by Darren Nattinger as a easter egg...

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Actually, a long-time developer on the LabVIEW team, Jeff W., added that feature.  I was just the messenger. 

-D

[TCPlomp]

Truely? I met Jeff last year during his LabVIEW in Europe trip, if I had know I would have complimented him (the only thing he was mentioning were 'Express VIs')

Ton

[TiTou]

So, if there is a CAR, that means it has stopped working for unclear reasons - it was not intentionaly removed - and it should be back some da, right ?

(still talking about MRUFolder option in labview.ini)

[Darren]

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TiTou wrote:

So, if there is a CAR, that means it has stopped working for unclear reasons - it was not intentionaly removed - and it should be back some da, right ?

(still talking about MRUFolder option in labview.ini)

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This will be my last off-topic post on this thread.  The fact that there is a CAR does not ensure that this will be fixed...it just means we know about the problem and will investigate it at some point.  *Hopefully* it will be fixed, but it's not guaranteed.

-D