Set Default VI Properties Globally

[AmitKaria2k]

For large projects it becomes cumbersome to set VI properties individually for each VI. I know there are few scripting methods available to do this. But in general it would be good to set the desired VI execution properties in "Environment" options available under "Tools --> Options" menu.

 

Thanks

Amit Karia

[Norbert_B]

What are the options you are looking for?

- 'Priority': Does not make any sense to alter from "Normal" to another level for all VIs. (You know, if everything is superior, nothing is superior anymore) 

- 'Allow Debugging': OK, good point. This could be useful.

- 'Reentrant Execution': Since reentrancy could easily lead to issues like race conditions, most VIs will/are not set to 'reentrant'.

- 'Inline': Only possible if certain requirements are met. So it also affects only a minority of all VIs.

- 'Enable automatic error handling': Already an option in the Block Diagram section.

Rest: I would think that only few developers (if at all) meddle with those options. So why should those options stress the "global settings"?

Norbert 

[AristosQueue (NI)]

Our suggestion would be that you create template VIs (.vit) with the settings that you desire and create new VIs from those. Any changes to those particular settings probably indicate you will want multiple such templates.

We have a few settings that affect how new VIs are created (controls/indicators style, separate code from source, grid size), but we've deliberately kept that list small -- these are things that are commonly modified. The settings that are not commonly modified would be easily overlooked -- users modifying those settings would be setting a change into the majority of their VIs that is probably not something that should be generally set. Execution system, for example, should be very rarely changed, and it makes more sense to make that a conscious "I am changing this setting for this VI" rather than making it a universal setting that you have to remember to go unset regularly.

[AmitKaria2k]

To be more specific I want following options that can be set in general to all VI's:

1. Setting "Allow Debugging". Since disabling this option can improve execution performance.

2. Setting "Clear Indicators When Called" is useful to a certain extent in debugging code.

I agree the other options are not used frequently and can be ignored.

The idea of VI templates is what I follow currently. However, it requires certain level of experience in team members to understand it and use it appropriately. The idea to in-corporate it in "Options" menu is to give global setting.

[X.]

It would be most easily done if the Project Explorer allowed showing more than the VI name (or path when switching to the "Files" view). There have been countless ideas regarding basic and more advanced improvements on this relatively recent addition to LabVIEW, few of them having garnered many kudos (maybe because few users take advantage of the project explorer?). Just go to the Idea Exchange forum and search for "project explorer". Your idea would relate to this one for instance, provided one would be able to select a field and set its value globally (for instance using the standard "select all/deselect all" and fine tuning by checking/unchecking check boxes as in many others "explorers").

Your suggestion is a bit too "all or nothing" for me to kudo it.

[AristosQueue (NI)]

"Clear Indicators When Called" is a significant performance hit and should only be used on VIs that you consciously intend to suffer that performance hit. "Allow Debugging" you generally want on until you're ready to deploy your VIs. I can't believe you would ever generally want to create new VIs with that turned off.