Quick drop plugins are not loading

[Wire_Warrior]

Got a weird problem here.....

I just recently had to reinstall LabVIEW 2012 on a new computer and the quick drop plugins, even the default ones, appear to not be loading.  The files are in the <LabVIEW>/resource/dialog/QuickDrop/plugins directory.  Quick drop it self runs and appears.  The right hand shortcuts work for both front panel and block diagram.  I didn't have this problem when I installed LV2012 before but that computer did have LV2011 and LV2010 already on it. 

Any thoughts?

[Darren]

Here's all the stuff I can think of (QDKS refers to "Quick Drop Keyboard Shortcut" plugins below):

• Did you install LV Speak? That has been known to break QDKS in the past.
• There's some sort of desktop window management software called Ultramon that has caused problems with Quick Drop in the past..I don't recall if it affected QDKS or just Quick Drop as a whole.
• If one or more of the shortcuts got saved in a later LabVIEW version (do you have the 2013 beta installed?), that could mess up their load.
• What OS are you on? If Windows, is it English?
• Backup your LabVIEW INI file and restart LabVIEW, and see if the shortcuts start working again.
• Try opening the plugin VIs in resource\dialog\quickdrop\plugins. Do any of them have broken run arrows?

Keep me posted.

[Wire_Warrior]

Darren,

Thanks for the response.  I tried what you've suggested and even rebooted the computer a few times still no Quick Drop control shortcuts.  Details below.

• No LabVIEW speak installed.
• Not using Ultramon
• Nothing installed but LabVIEW 2012.0f3 (32-bit)
• OS is Windows 7 Pro English SP1
• Backed up and deleted LabVIEW.ini.  Restarted LabVIEW no change in behavior.
• only VI with a broken run arrow was a tree VI in jcarmoody's Case Select plugin which I downloaded from Quick Drop Enthusiasts.  Deleting the tree and restarting made no difference

Thanks

Wire Warrior

[Darren]

This is all very strange. Here's a couple of other things to try.

• Delete/backup your [LabVIEW Data]\Quick Drop Plugins folder if it exists, and retry the shipping QDKS.
• Backup and replace your resource\dialog\quickdrop folder with the one I've zipped up and attached to this post. It's the exact files that shipped with LV 2012.
• Highlight text you've typed in the QD combobox and try the Ctrl-C/X/V copy/cut/paste shortcuts and see if they work fine. If not, then there's something fundamentally wrong with registering Ctrl-key presses in QD.
• Click "Shortcuts" in the QD window, and go to the Ctrl-Key shortcuts page. Do all the shortcuts show up? Do they look normal, i.e. you can see descriptions and key assignments?

[Wire_Warrior · Accepted solution]

Prior to changing anything.....

Hilighting the text and using ctrl-C/X/V worked to copy the text from the combobox etc. as expected.

There is nothing in the shortcuts window for the Ctrl-Key page.  No descriptions no key assignments.  The front panel and block diagram pages populate just fine.

No Quick Drop Plugins folder in the LabVIEW Data folder under My Documents.

OKAY I FIGURED IT OUT!!!!!!  I used Beyond Compare to do a binary comparison of the unzipped folder you attached to the contents of the QuickDrop folder on my machine.  There were 3 differences.  The addition of files for the Case Select and Reset to Zero plugins I had added and the Quick Drop Plugin Template.vi was missing from my folder.  I had accidentally saved it off earlier trying to make a new plugin myself.  I deleted the contents of my folder and replaced with the contents of the zipped folder.  When I restarted LabVIEW the default Quick Drop Ctrl-Key assignments were present and worked.  Then as a test I deleted the Quick Drop Plugin Template.vi from the folder under LabVIEW and the Ctrl-Key assignments dissappeared.  Replacing this file and the Ctrl-Key assignments reappeared.  I didn't even need to restart LabVIEW.  I don't know why this broke QD but at least now we know how to fix it.

Thanks for the help Darren!

[Darren]

Yes, deleting the template will break QDKS because Quick Drop uses the connector pane data type of the template to determine which plugins are valid when it loads the plugins (by comparing the plugin conpane to the template conpane). If the template isn't there, there's no base conpane to compare the plugins to.

Glad you got it working again.

P.S. - The template will be a .vit in LabVIEW 2013, so hopefully that will help us avoid situations like this where the template accidentally gets saved over.