I finally had time to get my latest version of the icon editor in the CR
enjoy and let me know what you think.

Version 2.3:

Along with the all the features from version 2.2, version 2.3 has several new features.


1: Icon Sizing and Positioning: Now Icons to be sized smaller than 32x32 by changing the “Rows” and “Width” controls. The icon can then be positioned using the “Position” control. My thanks to tcplomp for the Idea.

2: Static or Auto sizing Icons: If the “Icon Sizing selector is set the Static the icon will only draw the number of row indicated by the “Rows” control. If the selector is set to Auto the icon will adapt to the minimum number of text lines filled in.

3: Selectable Header: The icon header can be removed or enabled by changing the state of the “Header” checkbox.

4: Header and Sizing Information Saved: The header and sizing information are now save in the template files and are displayed at the bottom in the “History” array. The sizing and header settings are shown in the icon text of each template icon the when room allows. The history array now saves the last 50 icon templates to the template file

5: Color Picker Will Save Current Color in History: To get the color picker to save a new color in the color history array click on the “Current Color” box and it will be added the color history.

6: Improved Text Fitting: Text fitting inside the icon has been improved

7: Improved Text Recognition: Text recognition of the icon characters had been improved

8: Other Improvments: all key presses are ignored until the icon is created and text is in the string controls.

Please feel free to give me feedback. This version has benefited greatly from ideas given to me by coworkers and other programmers.

Thanks Mark! Your Icon editor is a great contribution to the LAVA code repository.

Hi Mark,

As per our discussion at NI Week, I'd love to see an added option to have icons for controls (.ctl,.ctt) have a bite taken out of the top right corner.

I like to do this with my controls so I can easily distinguish controls from VIs in the Hierarchy window.

I checked my previous VIs and it should be a 5 pixel byte. In that case too you might want to change the boundaries for the text in the header row.

Please see the attached picture for explanation.



Cheers,
Heiko

I agree that being able to distinguish between different LabVIEW component types in the hierachy window is a good idea, but I don't agree that the "bite" is the right way to do it. The bite is used on all LabVIEW files (have a look at the icons in the dialog that you get from the "File > New..." menu item), so I don't think assigning that to just contols is very intuative. I'd be much happier with the ability to add glyphs to my icons - that would be incredibly useful to me. I would imagine a handful of standard built=in glyphs (like the little slider for a control, a cube for objects, a key for private, etc) and the ability to browse to a disk-based image with a transparent background (eg: gif) to load my own. Then, also maybe the ability to snap the glyph to one of the corners (selectable, of course) or place it free. Now that's an icon editor I would use!

I think that being able to customize the frame is the next function I will work on. At NI Week Another developer pointed out to me that the LabVIEW Class icons use a different frame size than my 5 color one and that it would be better if the icon editor worked with LabVIEW's lvlibs better



Would it be useful enough that you would be willing to work with me on it. Its been a while since you contributed to the CR so why not help me figure out how to get glyphs into the icon editor.
I promise to rename it Mark and Chris's Icon editor.

If you need help, I'd be more than willing to help out. I use this tool every day so I'd love to contribute.

Heiko

Touche! While I'd love to help out, I have my own tools that need some work for an upcoming release, so I don't have any spare time right now (I'm hoping that I don't have to ramp down my LAVAing, but that may come next). I'm sure there are other qualified folks out there that are ready and willing to step up and help out?


There you go - Heiko's your man!

Mark,

this looks very interesting. I see the links in the original posting to versions that are compatible with LabVIEW 7.1 & 8.0. What versions is the latest download in the CR compatible with? 8.2 and greater only?

Jim

You might want to give this icon editor a try. I have nothing against your editor Mark. I think it's well done and easy to use, but it lacks some of the functionality that I wanted. This editor allows me to make my icons a bit more graphical without spending a lot of time on them. I also like the ability to edit the VI description property while I edit the icon.

One more note. If there is something you want to do in the default icon editor that ships with LabVIEW just hit Ctrl-. and the custom editor closes and the LabVIEW editor opens.

Nice, I like it. I especially like the little tab with the VI description although personally I would add the VI title to it as well.

However, I think the textual part is better done in Mark's editor. I have become so used to the auto-sizing, it would be hard to give that up.

Maybe a combination of features would be possible :-)

I completely agree that Mark's handles text better, and I really like the icon history feature. If you prefer the multi-line text icons marks is the best I've seen, but in the end the ease of dropping graphics won out for me. I think a mash-up of the two could be quite powerful.

The icon editor I created and posted here is a nice combination of the two. I really wanted to talk to Mark during NI Week about some collaboration, but it never happened. So I still need to talk to him...

I tried yours only briefly a few days ago but I haven't had time to give it a thorough review. My initial impressions were that I really liked the look and feel, but it seemed a bit slow to launch/respond. I'll have to play with it a bit more when I have some time.