George, I understand your frustration, and came up with a solution a long time ago (LV 3.1 anyone??) that works for me. Unfortunately it does require a little discipline at the start and during the development of a project. I ALWAYS keep my projects in their own folders within the LV subdirectory <<project>>. I regularly compile and use the "save with options" to save ALL, including what I refer to as "native" vi's, (this really pays dividends when modifying older projects) - a word of caution for those not too familiar with some of the "features" of this tool, double check you are NOT removing diagrams during this save, and you also have to step through the options in a particular order to be able to get the configuration you want. If I needed to modify any of the "native" vi's, I would rename them "My_native-name.vi", keeping the original name in there helps a lot. As focal/support point for a team of LV programmers, I would insist they all organised their work in this fashion as it helped in being able to pick up other people's work. This may sound like creating an overhead in terms of file size, but in these days being able to archive to CD (ahh those Scooby Snack piles of floppies.....)it is not a problem. Hope this offering is of some help.
David Hooper Engineer, Instrumentation & Plant Automation Shell Global Solutions (UK) Cheshire Innovation Park, P.O. Box 1, Chester CH1 3SH, United Kingdom Office: +44(0)151-373 5443 Fax: 5843 Mobile: +44(0)7776 464611 Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Internet: www.shellglobalsolutions.com Subject: Confounded and Ranting From: "George Gatling (Contractor)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Fri, 27 Feb 2004 21:09:59 -0500 I am happily working my way through my current project when I suddenly realize about half of my application is in C:\Documents and Settings\...\Temp\ I have no idea how long I have been editing files in a garbage temp folder, not to mention which ones are linked to the temp files vs the real files. GRRR!! Has anyone seen this behavior before? How does an entire app get copied to temp AND then why does LabVIEW link half to temp and half to real? This is a problem in itself, but also underscores the absolute need for some sort of project environment. I have been working with LabVIEW for a long time now and I still find myself baffled by labviews sneaky way of linking things together. I realize that it is not easy, every function also being its own file, but come on! Surely it would have been time well spent to clean up the linking situation rather than create a bunch of code cryptifing express vis!! So often I have had two very similar projects and I just wanted to copy the whole code pile and start from there. But nearly EVERY time I do that I wind up accidentally editing one or two files in the old app because not all of the copied files linked correctly. So I have to play tricks like temporarily renaming folders or mucking around with the search paths. Inevitable I wind up having to rename all of the files with some clever prefix, but when there are more than say two files it really starts to irk me. Because it is not enough to rename them in windows... then you have to go around replacing everything... and there other choice is no better.. clicking save as is just as much wear on my poor mouse and always seems to risk getting the old app pointing at the new app. It is not even safe to close everything except labview because I have noticed that occasionally something is still hanging around. It won't be in the hierarchy window, but the app builder sure seems to find it. No doubt this has nailed me in the past too. Perhaps I am just an idiot and there really is a clear explanation of how to control what vi's are pointing to what that I just don't know. That would be a nice case, because I don't mind being humbled every now and then, especially when that helps get work done :)) But seriously, what is going on with the linking and HOW did labview start pointing to half of an app in a temp folder? Of course I should have expected all of this because it is 9pm on a Friday and nearly all software bugs (aka features) seem to be able to sense this. George Gatling Applied Technology Division, SFA Inc. Space Physics Simulation Chamber US Naval Research Laboratory 202-404-5405 (phone) 202-767-3553 (fax) If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason. --Jack Handy
