Open VI reference without refees

[SteenSchmidt]

Hi,

I suggest an option added to the Open VI Reference primitive to open that VI reference without any refees. I suggest option bit 10, i.e. option 0x200h:

The demand for this arises when you want to access methods and properties of VIs that may be broken, while on the other hand you don't have any need to run those VIs - for instance in one of my current tools (BatchEditor) where I'm tasked with investigating hundreds of VIs simultaneously of which some could be broken or missing dependencies. Other situations would be tools for traversing project trees for instance. Opening a large number of healthy VI references takes a while, and when something is broken in a VI, opening even a single reference could take 30 seconds to minutes.

Currently you can suppress the "loading" and "searching" dialogs by setting option 0x20h on the Open VI Reference primitive, but that only loads the refnum silently as far as that will get you. Opening the refnum takes the same amount of time as if you could see those dialogs, and you are rewarded with an explorer window if a dependency search fails. I just want a way to open a VI refnum without even starting to look for dependencies, thus very quickly and guaranteed silently.

The relevant people would know that this request isn't that hard to implement, as it is kind of already possibly using some ninja tricks. I'd like such an option to be public.

Cheers,

Steen

[JackDunaway]

Hearty +1.

[dthor]

What's are refees?

[SteenSchmidt]

Refees: subVIs, type definitions, owning libraries... basically anything that points outside This VI.

/Steen

[JackDunaway]

A reference is one referenced by a refee. A refee is one who references a reference.

[RavensFan]

I guess that is a word that still needs to be added to the dictionary.  Maybe next year we'll see it in Webster's.

(Can we get this idea edited so that the words make sense?)

[SteenSchmidt]

Certainly, refees in the idea title could be changed to dependencies which would probably let most people understand the meaning behind the function, although "dependencies" isn't 100% covering in this case.

/Steen

[JÞB]

I'm with Bill.  Resubmit with a title change.   What exactly is the 100%?  I get dependencies.  Thanks to Jack I get refees.  I need you to give me a bit more Steen but, I think you have a point.  I'm assuming you have a scripting challenge?

And what dojo did you do your ninja training in???????  Some part inside me is thinking "He is trying to edit a lvlib member without notifying the lvlib"  That scares me.

[JackDunaway]

Whoa. The titled on this changed. Removing "Refee" from the title is bad, since it's an essential keyword meant to grab the attention of the intended audience. The title needs to be "Open VI Without Refees" or "Open VI Reference without Refees". The original title was good; the current title "Open VI reference without external ties" means nothing.

[Darin.K]

Removing "Refee" from the title is bad

Making up words is also bad, unless no other adequate description exists (or you need to squeeze it onto a private Invoke Node).  I do not know how the current title "external ties" was chosen, I think this is its third one.  Steen had it correct IMO, the word he used was "dependencies"  I would had a loading qualifier:

"Open VI reference without loadiing external dependencies"

[SteenSchmidt]

I agree Jack, and must admit that I was the pushover here - I requested the title change. I like refee much better though, as that is also what NI calls it in their own APIs. But when Bill and Jeff has no idea what we are on about, I thought that maybe many others won't either. Others who might benefit from this idea and otherwise would've voted for it.

Anyways, can we agree upon getting the idea title changed back the way it was, and then roll up our sleeves and explain to those who ask what it means? And you maintain that brown banners are off limits here? It would go a long way explaining the nomenclature...

Cheers,

Steen