Quick Drop and Class Name

[_carl]

Let's say I have some API VIs in a palette, they all belong to the same class ("Demo Class.lvclass"):

I'd like to access them in Quick Drop, ideally by typing in the name of the palette/class that they're in:

But....they don't show up.  Worse yet, typing "Initialize" or "Close" won't get be there either because these names are too generic.

Is there a way to get these VIs to show up when searching for the class/library/palette that they're in?

I'd love to have a list that shows:

- "Demo Class.lvclass:Initialize.vi"

- "Demo Class.lvclass:Do Stuff.vi", etc.

(or "Do Stuff [Demo Class.lvclass]")

The only thing I can think of is to change the actual name in the palette to match the format above, but...that seems like a) a lot of hard-to-maintain work and b) less than ideal given that now they'll have uglier names in the palette.

[FireFist-Redhawk]

One option would be to press Configure... on the Quick Drop popup and add custom block diagram shortcuts for each of those:

Spoiler

[Darren]

If the VIs in your palette are members of a library or class, the library/class name will appear in brackets after the VI name in Quick Drop:

This assumes you have not modified the VI window titles and/or palette item short names in the .mnu file that defines the palette.

[_carl]

So that's what I would have expected/hoped for, but it doesn't seem to work that way. In this case, this was a new class I created to demonstrate the behavior, and I haven't changed the auto-generated palette (.mnu) for it, or the VI name.

[Darren]

Can you describe the procedure you used to generate the palette for the class?

[_carl]

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@Darren wrote:

Can you describe the procedure you used to generate the palette for the class?

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Sure.
1. Create new class directly in its own folder in instr.lib:

2. Restart LabVIEW.

3. Palette automatically shows up in "Instrument I/O"->"Instr Drivers"->"Demo" (the folder I created).

Looks like it didn't create a .mnu file.

[Darren]

It looks like auto-populated palettes (i.e. those that aren't defined by a .mnu file) don't grab the namespace for the VIs like all other palettes do. For example, the Agilent 34401 palette (also in instr.lib) does use a .mnu file, and as a result, it appears to get the namespaces in Quick Drop.

I'd say the workaround here would be for you to define the palette for your class in a simple .mnu file.

[_carl]

That doesn't seem to make a difference.  I created a menu file by editing the palette through the palette editor (it auto-generates a .mnu file in the folder if you save your changes), and...after restart, still behaving the same.

[Darren]

Ugh, what a mess. So it looks like a bug with auto-populating palettes conflicting with using a .mnu file. I managed to get Quick Drop to display the owning library name for a VI that is in an .lvlib in instr.lib, but not a VI that is in an .lvclass:

[_carl]

Interestingly, I can't even reproduce that:

Edit: Also tried creating and adding the dir.mnu to the .lvlib, and selecting that as the default palette, saving, restarting LabVIEW.  Same result: just has the VI name in Quick Drop.