Project View Enhancement: Show (more) VI Properties!

[fabric]

I remember when I first discovered the "Show Item Paths" option in the "Project" menu. This is such a useful view, but for some reason we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg!

I propose that the project window be enhanced to support other useful VI properties too:

Among other things, this would allow us to very easily identify VIs (or controls, or libraries, ... ) with non-standard properties. (Have you ever revisited an old project and tried to figure out which VIs are reentrant, or inlined?)

What properties should be available?

• Ideally, this view would support ALL properties for ALL project items ( - at least those that have a compact text representation).
• If that proves impractical for some good technical reason then I'd suggest we at least get access to the Execution properties.
• It would be great if we could choose which columns to display from available item properties. These columns could then be toggled on/off (just like the existing "Paths" column):

An added bonus would be the ability to sort by any column:

• My preferred implementation would be to allow the user to click on any column name to toggle between ascending and descending view. (This type of thing has been suggested a few times for multicolumn listboxes...)
• On the other hand, I'd be happy enough if this worked the same as it currently does with "Paths", i.e. using the "Arrange By" option (>> Right-click on a parent item in the project and arrange the child items by Name, Type, Path, etc)

I think this would be a BIG step in the right direction towards leveraging the existing project interface to provide some REALLY useful information.

Spoiler

If anyone is wondering about the "Runs On Error" property then you should visit this idea.

[JackDunaway]

+1 for "an executive view of VI properties of the VIs in a project", but... placing these columns into the Project Explorer as illustrated may have problems.

Many project items are not VIs (.ctl, .lvclass and other library types, targets, documents, virtual folders...) where the illustrated VI properties are not applicable. But it's interesting to continue this line of thought to provide an executive view of properties for all project item types, except that since each of these have mutually exclusive properties of interest, we can't place the properties in a table view that contains all item types.

On the other hand - and in the spirit of high cohesion - we could add a few more Tabs rather than just "Items" and "Files"... such as "VIs", "Controls", "Libraries"....  But great idea, +1 for a feature I would love to use!

(Finally, rather than just indication, it would be incredibly cool to bulk control these properties.)

[X.]

Related to this: http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/Smart-project-viewer/idi-p/1112676 which I'd prefer. Arguably, both a listbox view (this idea) and a tab view (controled by a pulldown list - the way I interpret the other idea) should be offerend as options.

What should be changed in any case iis the fact that right now, if you select a VI item and right-click >> Properties, this item is opened.

If I had wanted to open the VI, I would have double-clicked it, folks. But I guess, you can't just get a peek at the Properties in LabVIEW...

[Michael_Munroe]

I found a similar need to edit multiple VIs from the project and wrote a utility that is now available on the LVTN:

http://sine.ni.com/nips/cds/view/p/lang/en/nid/212770