Set Text Icon Quick Drop

[Kosta]

Quick Drop Keyboard Shortcut – Set Text Icon

Default Key - K

This plugin modifies the icon of a VI to match its file name by setting the text layer of the icon. To install, unzip the attachment in one of the following locations (no LabVIEW restart required):

<LabVIEW 20xx>\resource\dialog\QuickDrop\plugins

<LabVIEW Data>\Quick Drop Plugins

This shortcut is intended for use with LabVIEW 2018 or 2019. A minimally-tested version saved in LabVIEW 2016 has also been attached below.

The following is an example VI with the default icon.

With this plug-in installed and the default shortcut assignment, pressing Ctrl-Space, Ctrl-K results in the following:

If a word is too long to fit in a single line it gets shortened. Short words get combined in the same line if possible. If the VI is a member of a library or class, the library layer of the icon is preserved.

This shortcut relies on layers in the icon, including the text layer, making it practical for users without the shortcut to edit the icon if necessary. This shortcut was inspired by the Set Icon Quick Drop plugin written by NI Forums user bienieck. Note that both shortcuts rely on the same default letter, so you will need to configure a different key if you want to use both plugins. Click the Configure button in Quick Drop and go to the ‘Ctrl-Key Shortcuts’ page to change shortcut key assignments.

October 16, 2019 Update

I am adding Set Text Icon V2.zip file which implements the suggestion made by cbfsystems so you can override the text based on file name by using the Object Name field in the Quick Drop dialog box. These VIs were saved using LabVIEW 2019.

[cbfsystems]

This shortcut is awesome.  Creating all the icons (text) for my VIs has been very time consuming;  I think I will use this a lot.  I made a small modification so that the text that is typed in the quick drop combo box is used to generate the icon unless the combo box is empty, in which case the behavior is unchanged (text generated from file name).  Thanks for publishing this.

[PrimaryKey]

Great idea! It looks like quick drop is becoming the community favorite way to extend LV 🙂

[Kosta]

cbfsystems,

Thank you very much for the feedback. I also found myself editing text in icons, and wishing that I could spend less time on that activity. I hope that this Quick Drop enables us to spend time where we add more value. 

I like the improvement you suggested so much that I implemented it right away.

[PrimaryKey]

Kosta, could you please prepare a VI Package installer for this tool? It would help simplifying installation.

[BenvanSeggelen]

Is there support for Icon headers?

[Darren]

---

@BenvanSeggelen wrote:

Is there support for Icon headers?

---

What do you mean? If the VI you're modifying is a member of a library, its banner will be preserved.

[JensG69]

Hi,

I suppose Benvan means a nice formatting of the text, if the VI already contains an icon template layer.

Here a quick and dirty version (i.e. not nicely formatted and also not tested thoroughly), that would do that. I hope it does not break the functionality within a library banner. It would also preserve settings of the text layer icon if these are set to other values than the typical standard.

Regards, Jens

[joerg.hampel]

Is it possible for you to provide a version for LV 2016?

[Darren]

Hey Joerg, I attached a minimally-tested version of the plugin saved in LabVIEW 2016 to the main post.