How to add glyphs to the "Enhanced Icon Editor" in LabVIEW 2009

[Jim_Kring]

It's possible to add glyphs to the Enhanced Icon Editor in LabVIEW 2009 (for example, by putting them in the “USER\My Documents\LabVIEW Data” folder).  It seems that this should probably be documented here in the LabVIEW Add-on Dev Center -- I couldn't find any official documentation on this.

Thanks,

[chris.b]

I completely agree. The icon editor (and the subsequent group) was an experiment in developing a partially "open" feature, and both this group and the LabVIEW documentation have not "caught up" to the information the community has generated.

Does JKI make heavy use of custom glyphs for the icon editor? If so, where do you get your glyphs? (original / open-source / paid)

[Jim_Kring]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for putting this on your radar.

Regarding use of glyphs at JKI, I think that some engineers have added freely available collections to their LabVIEW installations.  We're looking into creating VI Packages of these.

-Jim

[mprimrose]

This post:

http://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-9921

References the:

Open Icon Library Project - http://openiconlibrary.sourceforge.net/

This is a very large library of glyphs.  I even saw a couple used by JKI    It would be great to add this library to VIPM.

[chris.b]

Second that. I love the idea of having VI packages of glyphs

[Daklu]

mprimrose wrote:

It would be great to add this library to VIPM.

Uhh... the full developer's package is 366 MB.  That's a bit on the extreme side for VIPM.  I'm sure VIPM can handle the package size, I just think there are better solutions than putting 1/3 GB of icons into a configuration management system.  (Perhaps creating a tool that downloads and installs the icons?)

[chris.b]

It's true that 366 MB is pretty large, but I think I view VIPM slightly differently...

I think VIPM is more than just a "configuration management system"; it is literally a package manager, and the benefits include easy download, update, and implementation of packages. In this way, I think it makes sense for VIPM to support glyphs. If we build a tool that downloads and installs different glyphs to be used in LabVIEW, that is starting to sound like VIPM. (an admittedly simplistic argument, of course)

[Jim_Kring]

Yes!  VIPM provides configuration management on top of package management.  And, I don't think anyone would usually put the glyph library into a VI Package Configuration, because it's not really something that any project would depend upon.

[Daklu]

chris.b wrote:

It's true that 366 MB is pretty large, but I think I view VIPM slightly differently...

I think VIPM is more than just a "configuration management system"; it is literally a package manager, and the benefits include easy download, update, and implementation of packages. In this way, I think it makes sense for VIPM to support glyphs. If we build a tool that downloads and installs different glyphs to be used in LabVIEW, that is starting to sound like VIPM. (an admittedly simplistic argument, of course)

I agree VIPM packages make it super easy to install nearly anything Labview related.  My reluctance to get excited about a 366 MB package stems from the practical implications, none of which is insurmountable, but taken in whole makes me think creating a VIPM package that contains a tool to download and install the icons in the correct folder is a better long term solution:

1. Because it is a package management system, VIPM keeps copies of every version of the package in a cache on your hard drive.  It also stores an additional copy of the same package for every version of Labview you installed the package for.  I have 8.6, 2009, and 2010 beta on my system.  That's 1.3 GB of images.  Add an additional 1.3 GB every time someone adds 4 new icons and disk consumption is going to add up pretty quickly.  There are work arounds, such as manually deleting the package from the cache and databases after installing it, but they are inconvenient.  (Maybe that could be included as a post install script?)

(EDIT - It turns out the standard library containing primarily .png files weighs in at a svelte 190 MB, so it's not quite as bad as I originally thought.)

2. VIPM maintains separate package databases for each version of Labview installed and appears to expect different install locations depending based on the version.  How does it handle installing and uninstalling packages to the same location when multiple versions of Labview are used?  (I've never tried it so I don't know.)

3. Somebody is going to have to maintain the package, updating it whenever new icons are added.

I love VIPM and I use it all the time -- I just don't think it's the right tool for this particular job.  Give a man a fish or give him the tools to catch his own fish...

[Jim_Kring]

You raise good points about the efficiency of the database.  It should be noted that these are VIPM performance optimization issues and not so much architectural issues (to me it seems a little redundant to have VIPM download and install a package that downloads and installs packages -- that energy should be spent improving upon VIPM and we have every intention to do that).

Have a great weekend!