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Bookmark Project Provider

Chris Roebuck edited this page Jan 6, 2025 · 49 revisions

Introduction

The Bookmark Project Provider is designed to make it relatively easy to add bookmarks or free text label comments to one or more VIs from the LabVIEW Project window without having to open the VI, navigate to its block diagram and adding the comment.

This toolkit also provides options for adding Bookmarks to open VIs from their block diagram and makes creating them easier and more useful than ever.

Installation

You will be prompted to restart LabVIEW as part of the installation process. LabVIEW must be restarted following installation to make the Bookmark Project Provider available.

Figure 1-Prompt to restart LabVIEW

Getting Started

Once installed the Bookmark Project Provider can be invoked by selecting one of more VIs in the LabVIEW Project. This will cause the item right-click menu to be displayed. The menus differ very slightly depending on the number of items selected.

Figure 2-Single Item Right-Click Menu

Figure 3-Multiple item right-click menu

Selecting either of these two options launches the Add Bookmark User Interface shown below:

Figure 4-Add Bookmark User Interface

The Add Bookmark user interface features a central text input area where new bookmark text can be added along with four buttons, each providing a predefined bookmark that can be quickly added to the text area above.

Hovering (or clicking) over the central text input area, highlighted by a text message inviting you to start typing, will immediately place the keyboard focus on this input box.

If at any point the text entered contains a bookmark, then the bookmark text will be set to bold and the font colour changed to highlight it.

Figure 5-User interface showing bookmarks highlighted

Clicking one of the predefined bookmark buttons places that bookmark into the text entry window at the current cursor position.

When you are done editing the bookmark text, click ‘Create Bookmark’(or use the keyboard combo Ctrl + Enter) to place a free label on the selected VI(s) block diagram.

Figure 6-Free label containing bookmark/text

Clicking preferences launches the preferences editor where the four (4) predefined bookmarks can be edited and the colour of the resulting free label adjusted.

Figure 7-Preferences editor

To edit any of the four buttons simply edit the text in the White text entry box immediately below the button. Note that any text can be added, it does not need to contain #, if you simply want to add some text such as a part number or author name.

Click on the Bookmark colour selector to bring up the colour selection palette. This allows the selection of a background colour or text colour for any free labels created using this project provider.

By default new Bookmarks are created as the Top, leftmost item on the block diagram however the preferences editor allows a custom location to be specified.

Click ‘Save’ to save your edited preference, changes take effect immediately. Click cancel to revert to the previous preferences.

Figure 6 above shows the default preferences.

To view the bookmarks you create (or any others for that matter) you should perform one of two following actions

  1. Open the VI(s) to which the bookmark was added and navigate manually to it on the block diagram.

  2. From the Project window or any open VI, select View > Bookmark Manager to launch the bookmark manager. This lists all bookmarks in VI(s) that are currently in memory. Double-clicking on a bookmark in bookmark manager immediately takes you to that bookmark.

Figure-8 Bookmark Manager

Version 2.0.0.0 (and later) adds several further options for creating bookmarks and makes standardising on “preferred” bookmarks even easier.

Bookmark Suggester

Enabled using the preferences window (figure 7 above) the Bookmark suggester is an additional tool that suggests appropriate bookmarks as you type into the bookmark editor window. Once enabled it is automatically launched when typing a # (hash) character into the New Bookmark editor window as shown below.

Figure-9 Bookmark Suggester

Its contents (suggestions) comprise of bookmarks from the following sources:

• Recently added bookmarks • Preferred bookmarks • Currently used bookmarks in the active VI/Project (depending on the context in which tool was launched) • VI Analyzer Ignore Bookmarks (Optional setting in preferences)

Continuing to type the characters of the desired bookmark will filter the suggested items further. Items can be selected by continuing to type the bookmark or using the UP / DOWN cursor buttons to navigate the list.

Hitting Enter will select the currently selected item. If no item is selected, then the typed bookmark text will be selected.

The bookmark suggester will maintain its own list of recently used bookmarks. Optionally set using the preferences window (figure 7 above) it will include bookmarks found in the current VI or project depending on the context in which it was launched.

To include your own list of preferred bookmarks, add them to the file that has been automatically created for you at the following location:

C:\Users\Public\Documents\Greylock Technology\preferredbookmarks.txt

Items should be comma-separated in the following format:

#ExampleBookmark1,#ExampleBookmark2

Bookmark Quick Drop Shortcut

You can invoke the New Bookmark editor by launching Quick Drop from the Block Diagram using the Ctrl + Space key combination immediately followed by Ctrl + M

If an existing free text label is selected at the time of invocation of the Quick Drop shortcut, then the text from that label will automatically be placed into the bookmark editor ready for alteration or replacement.

When launched from Quick Drop the Bookmark editor allows deferred placement of a new bookmark by placing the Bookmark on the cursor awaiting the user to click the target location on the block diagram rather than in the Default location (or static custom location specified in preferences). The user can click the block diagram to select the desired position or click Esc to cancel bookmark placement.

To defer bookmark placement the user should complete the bookmark text in the editor and then click Ctrl + M

Bookmark Right Click Plugin

You can invoke the New Bookmark editor by right-clicking on an existing free text label on the block diagram of a VI and selecting the Edit Bookmark item.

Figure 10-Edit Bookmark Right-Click Option for free text labels

Enahnced Bookmark Manager

Installation of the Bookmark Project Provider includes an enhanced Bookmark Manager tool. This can be launched by selecting View > Bookmark Manager or by using Quick Drop with the shortcut Ctrl+Space followed by Ctrl+K

Upon launch you will be presented with a dialog where you can select the default Bookmark Manager or the Greylock Enhanced Bookmark Manager.

Figure 11-Bookmark Manager selection dialog

Upon launch the Greylock Enhanced Bookmark Manager behaves identically to the shipping (Default) manager with the addition of being able to find and replace a bookmark globally without having to open and edit individual VIs.

Simply select the Bookmark you wish to replace and then right-click where you will be offered a menu item to replace the bookmark.

Figure 12-Bookmark Manager Right Click Menu

Now you will be prompted to enter the new, replacement bookmark.

Figure 13-New bookmark dialog

Video Examples

The following instructional videos show the various ways of invoking the Bookmark Project Provider or associated tools.

Bookmark Project Provider

https://youtu.be/WGmc5QvOSkk

Bookmark Quick Drop Plugin

https://youtu.be/RpgvAnN4DJY

Bookmark Right Click Plugin

https://youtu.be/LjrmfSzTTWo

“We hope you enjoy using this and the many more tools and utilities we have planned at Greylock Technology”

support@greylock-technology.com

Appendix:3rd party content

The installation package for The Bookmark Project Provider replaces a VI in VI.lib with an alternative provided by National Instruments in a public forum as mitigation for a Right-Click Menu Bug. Read more about this bug and its’ mitigation here:

https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Shortcut-Menu-Plug-Ins/Bug-Fix-for-ALL-Right-Click-Menu-Plug-Ins-LV2015-to-2019/ta-p/4016064?profile.language=en

This VI was included in the package with the kind permission of National Instruments.