clone/copy action engine to use as starting block for new action engine

[Neil.Pate]

Hello Experts,

I am coming up against a problem which has surely been solved by others.

I have a set of VIs I would like to use multiple times in my project. To be more specific, I have created a template Action Engine (and all associated VIs and typedefs etc), and wish to re-use this multiple times in my project, as a starting block for new Action Engines.

After much trial and error, I have not had much success solving the problem of being able to copy (clone) the VIs into their own separate directory. I thought if I use a lvlib then I can get around having to rename every VI in the action engine, i.e. every action engine can have one Main.vi, and the typedef for the action can always be called Main - Action.ctl.

But it all seems to go wrong when I bring this lvlib into my project (actually I am trying to bring it into another lvlib file, as I wish to eventually clone this bigger lvlib).

Any ideas where I am going wrong, or any suggestions about the sensible way to do this. I am totally open to all suggestions.

Many thanks
Neil

ps: using LV 8.5

pps: for those unfamiliar with the term Action Engine, its another name for a LV2 style global variable with a bit of built in functionality. It doesnt really matter that it is an action engine for this problem I am trying to solve.

[Tom O]

Hi Neil,

I'm not sure if this will do exactly what you're after, but you could save your main action engine VI as a template and load that into your project. Each time you load from the template, you would create a new, uniquely named copy of the VI in your project for you to work from. All dependencies will be added to the project automatically, although copies of the dependencies will not be made.

Other than this, you could programmatically rename the files before adding them to the project; one original folder could be copied with new file names for addition to the project.

I hope this is the sort of thing you were talking about!

Best regards,