Tip Strip limitations?

[wired]

I have an application that uses a multi-column listbox for logging messages.  Most messages will be custom messages, but I would also like to log LabVIEW error messages (which are generally long and multi-line).  If I don't allow multi-line input, the error number and location show up in the single row of the listbox, which is good. However, I would like the tip strip to show the complete message, but it gets truncated.  Will this always be a limitation in LabVIEW?  Is there a way to override the tip strip action?  I can probably generate an event to put up a box showing the whole message, but it would sure be nice if there was a more elegant solution.

[Paul-D · Accepted solution]

Hello wired, this is Paul with Applications Engineering at National Instruments.

The current character limit for tip strips is 255 characters per:

http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/371361G-01/lvhowto/creating_vi_and_object_de/

At this time I do not see any documentation on expanding this, as this kind of gets outside the intended functionality of the tip strip.  If you would like to suggest we change this, we're happy to hear your ideas at: http://ni.com/ideas

It does sound like you have some other ideas on how to make this work for you, but let us know if you need any more assistance.

Paul

[wired]

Hi Paul,

I certainly understand the limitation of a tip strip as it is typically used (documentation of a control's purpose).  However, if the intent of its use in a multi-column listbox is to display the contents of the cell (which is not something that the LabVIEW programmer actually sets), then it falls short of its intended purpose. I do see that there needs to be a reasonable limit (we can't be putting 5MB documents in listbox cells, can we?), but I wish the limit were programmable in this case.  I'd at least like to be able to fit your LabVIEW error descriptions in one 😉