Ability to set max Tip Strip size for controls and indicators as a VI property - more than 250 characters!!!!!

[sbus]

We use tip strips to guide our users thru input field options. We have a test system that accepts JSON strings - a tip strip provides a simple way to list for the user the JSON info they need to build the correct string. WE'd also like to be able to quote pages from the manual about different inputs when they hover over a field. Documentation is important, and real-time documentation is priceless. I don't want our users to have to click on HELP and search. It want a BIG tip strip!

255 characters is a great DEFAULT - but why can't was change the max size on a VI or project basis? A string is a string..... there's no reason to arbitrarily pick 255 characters.

I'd like to have added to VI properties a max tip strip size parameter so I can set some VI's to a (much) longer tip strip...

Beats having to code a string control with the tip data, and having either to change it's visibility, or create a separate VI popup... and users are USED to tip strips... not just in LabVIEW. IT's a great paradigm, and making it able to contain more data would increase its usefulness.

[billko]

I think more than a sentence or two deserves a link, not a tip strip.

[User002]

I don't have any help for how to do what you're asking immediately, but (assuming 250 characters really is a hard built-in limit), it seems like this post is one to put on the Idea Exchange.

You could even propose an option for a built-in previewer, showing the details of a linked document/file/web page without having to click it. (I'm imagining a Wikipedia-like interface, like how you can see internal Wikipedia descriptions when you hover on a link.)

(This is assuming a much more experienced LabVIEW user doesn't provide a better answer here. 😁)

[rolfk]

This limit most likely is pretty hard one from implementation. LabVIEW knows several different string formats. While the so called Long Pascal format is used throughout for diagram data, and stored as a handle (pointer to pointer) in memory, LabVIEW also knows C strings (a pointer to a memory block terminated with a NULL character) and Pascal strings, which is a pointer to a memory block containing the string with the length stored in the first byte. Many strings stored in the resource file format of LabVIEW use this format. With one byte for the length the maximum size is naturally limited to 255 characters.

Tip strips were not supposed to be long, aren’t normally edited once the program is compiled, so choosing this format wasn’t such a gross idea. A Pascal string has significantly less memory overhead than a full LabVIEW string for the string sizes normally used for Tip Strips!

Changing this now would most likely mean a resource file format change. While not entirely impossible it’s quite unlikely at this point of the LabVIEW Classic development cycle.

[BertMcMahan]

If you're doing lots of hovering information, you could make you a pretty slick QControl  that just pops up another "Help" VI that *looks* like a tip strip. It could even include pictures, hyperlinks, examples, anything you want.

(FYI you can't do this if your stuff is in a subpanel due to one of the positioning methods not working inside subpanels... shameless plug for my IdeaExchange idea to fix it ;))