the best way to manage vi locations and dependencies?

[bittergourd]

Hi,
when i am updating my own vi version by creating a new folder with my files, somehow labview isn't so smart to link the subvi's and dll's that are also moved with the main programs.  now i am using project manager and the situation is even worse.  i am wondering if there is a best way of managing file dependency tree, for example, relative paths?

also, it seems that labview treat llb files as folders, so packing (sub)vis that are refering each other in one llb doesn't solve the problem, ie the vi in the new copy of llb file will still refer to the old file even the new version is right next to it in the same llb file.

if i archive the old files, labview becomes confused and fails to locate the new files.

as my project grows bigger, i will have to spend lot of time relinking subvis.  really need to solve this problem.....

- yi

[TCPlomp]

I don't see how you get this.

But some pointers:
Make sure all VIs are under one folder.
Make sure all other versions of the files are not searchable (remove a backup-folder from your LabVIEW search paths)
Create a LVproject.
Add the main VI to the project.
Open the main VI from the project
If you get warnings, go over them one by one and select the VI you want to keep.

Switch over to files view (available in 8.5 ctrl-e) and see if the VIs are in the expected locations, if not, open them (from the project), File-> save as (update callers)

This will get your project cleaned up.

From now on you only use the project window.

To make a backup-file, create a source-distribution, where you will rename each file (a feature available in 8.5)

If you  don't rename the files make sure you always close the project and any of it's files before opening a VI from the backup folder.

Ton