Why the "llb" in the document titles?

[tst]

What's the point of having the ".llb" in the document titles? It just makes it harder to read and doesn't provide any useful information.

Also, I haven't gone through all the documents, but at least this one is missing the attachment - https://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-43376

[AristosQueue (NI)]

I felt using the full file name would encourage people to not try to put different titles in their subject line -- it makes it easy to search to see if a given file name is already in use by someone else. If I leave out the ".llb" then people might tend to put a different more "summary-like" title, or change the title without changing the name of the plug-in if they decide late in the process that there's a better name.

It seemed like a good mental guide -- it certainly kept me from cheating on a couple of posts where I decided to actually go back and rename the original plug-in. Since it definitely helped curb my own temptations for myself, I think it is worth keeping as a pattern.

[tst]

I don't think the documents list is useful for collision detection - it's not sorted, it's divided into pages and it's not aligned easily for easy scanning (the gaps are wrong and you get documents with line wrapping).

I don't have any good idea for reliably maintaining a unified list. We could have a document which would list them, like QD does, but that requires discipline. You could add it to the instructions, but it would still require manual intervention. It might be possible to deal with this with some automation tool like IFTTT, but I doubt it can do something like this.

The easiest solution is to just ignore the problem and say "I trust that people won't create collisions and will manage it if they do".

Looking at the threads list, I think that mine is easier to parse than others (certainly those with line breaks or parentheses, but also some of those with just the file name). It might not be a bad idea to let people have more descriptive titles and not to bind them to the file name. This will allow them to change either the title or the file name more freely, which is not necessarily a bad thing.

[AristosQueue (NI)]

Obviously I cannot constrain people's posts to be the name of their plug-in (as you demonstrate by posting otherwise!).  I could edit the posts (as an adminstrator) to make them conform, though I would rather that the pattern be followed.

If you think yours is easier to parse, I would ask that you name your plug-in accordingly. In a directory listing, this same problem is faced -- what does each plug-in do? So if your LLB name is not sufficient for the listing here, then it isn't sufficient for the listing in the file system.

If I tell someone to find a given plug-in, having the names spelled out will make it more findable on the list -- yes, the search bar works to find a given attachment, but there is general distrust of the search facility within ni.com (which is unfair -- it's actually very good, it just isn't Google backed and people are used to searches that can read your mind!).

[tst]

I understand the desire to have the names match, as it does make things simpler, but I'm not sure if it would work in practice. Looking at your screenshot, I can imagine "Intellisense-style browser for changing properties.llb" as a reasonable description, but I don't know that could apply to all plugins and I certainly didn't think of coming up with such a descriptive name when I started working on the plugin (I believe I followed the template which takes the menu item text from the file name). I'm guessing other people won't think that far ahead either.

It could also create an issue if someone wants to figure out which plugin is responsible for a specific item in the menu (although presumably some LLBs will generate multiple items or build the text dynamically, so there isn't a 1:1 ratio between file names and menu items).

The NI search is bad (it often doesn't give you results for the exact text you searched for), but I would still expect people to search if they had a specific title they were directed to. If not ni.com, then a more general search engine.

I would still say the titles should not have the ".llb", because it makes it hard to read. I would argue that if they do reflect the exact file name, they should probably still have a "standard" option of having additional info, like the parentheses you used (which are not particularly readable with the ".llb" there). I'll try to give it a few days to clear the cache and then see what I think with a fresher prespective.

[tst]

I renamed my document to the file name to maintain consistency. I'm still not sure if this is the pattern we should follow and I definitely don't like the ".llb" part.

Let's see if others have what to say.