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» Developing a VI-Based API » Adding Example VIs to the NI Example Finder
This example documents the process for adding Example VIs to the NI Example Finder. To prepare for this example, please download the .zip archive linked to at the bottom of this document and copy the contents to your LabVIEW directory (the 'examples' folder in the .zip should be merged with the existing examples folder in the LabVIEW directory in order for the examples\ATX\SimpleMath\Simple Math Example.vi file to be in the correct location).
- Open LabVIEW
- Open the 'Prepare Example VIs for NI Example Finder utility (Tools > Prepare Example VIs for NI Example Finder)
- Change the 'Start directory for examples' to the directory where your API examples are located (LabVIEW\examples\Company\Product\ or for this example, LabVIEW\examples\ATX\Simple Math).
- Double-click the example VI (.vi) or LabVIEW Project file (.lvproj) you wish to document in the first pane on the left (Simple Math Example.vi).
- Navigate to your desired browse path and double-click on the grey icon designating the bucket you've chosen for the example (you can add multiple paths); this is the path users will use with the 'List' view of the NI Example Finder. Currently, this list is not open to adding new browse paths.
- Double-click on Keywords in the third pane to compile a list of tags for users to use when searching for examples in the NI Example Finder. If you would like to add keywords, enter your new keywords in the box below this pane and select 'Add New Keyword'.
- The Documentation pane in the upper right corner of the window describes the settings you've chosen for a particular example.
- The pane below the Documentation pane contains the example description, this is the description which appears in the Description text box of the NI Example Finder.
- When you've completed documenting a particular example, click 'Save Documentation' at the bottom-right of the window. Then repeat steps 4-8 for additional examples.
- Once you've completed documenting your examples, change to the 'Build Data File' tab.
- For the 'Data file to create (bin3)', navigate to \LabVIEW\examples\exbins\ and save this file as Company-Product.bin3. For a list of prefixes you cannot use when naming this file, please consult the LabVIEW Help Document by clicking the Help button at the bottom-right of the window.
- Set the directory where the examples are stored.
- Click 'Build File'.
- Restart LabVIEW, Open the NI Example Finder and search/browse for your examples. I recommend documenting the steps to search/browse to your examples for customers.
