I'm developing some software for a colleague, to run on (one of) his machines. I do my best to follow Good LabVIEW Practices, including using Version Control (SVN) to maintain my code. Hence my Project "jumps" from computer to computer.
I recently noticed an old problem re-appear, namely occasional Front Panel and Block Diagram labels appearing in a different Font Size (18) than I've set as the default on my Office Desktop and home Laptop (15). This was really irritating (especially having to find those wayward labels and "fix" them), forcing me to re-examine the Where and How of setting Default Fonts in LabVIEW.
This still appears to be a Dark Art, one (perhaps) involving LabVIEW.ini (and some undocumented keys, not present in the "vanilla" configuration file). There appear to be several such INI files, with LabVIEW.ini attuned for development, and an INI file in the Data folder of a built Executable for that Executable. But still, the values are bereft of documentation (i.e. documentation is conspicuous by its absence) and not everything is explained (like why some values are in quotes, what they mean, and how one sets a specific Font, e.g. Arial).
One thing that I, in particular, would like to see would be the ability to set the Font Defaults on a Project basis. For myself, I "own" the Project, and would want it to have a consistent Font (size) on all my VIs (unless I specifically decide to Emphasize something), no matter on what machine I develop them and when. If I have to set the Font Default on a machine-wide basis, then every time I develop on my colleague's PC, I'd have to (a) note his settings, (b) change them to mine, and (c) remember to set them back when I finish. As such sessions are often an hour here, an hour there, this "machine-centric" setting becomes a nuisance fast.
I recently had the opportunity to discuss this with an NI Applications Engineer, who assisted me in finding (some of) the obscure references to Font Setting Tricks. I noted that a lot of what the Community knows seems to come from "Reverse-Engineering" NI's settings, and that some Documentation and Standardization (let's get away from designating Fonts as "1", "2", or "3", which have no intrinsic meaning, please) would be a good idea. Hence this LabVIEW Idea.
Bob Schor
Re-opening because LabVIEW NXG has been discontinued.