Need Aliases for project items

[CoastalMaineBird]

I really need the concept of "aliases" or "shortcuts" to project items.  Consider this project:

Case 1: maybe the item in blue is where I left off working yesterday,

Case 2: maybe the item in blue is a VI that I have to change when I add a new class somewhere else.

Either way, to get to it, I have to

1... Open the target ('RTAC-Culverson')

2... Open the DAQOBJECT folder

3... Open the DAQOBJECT CAN folder

4... Open the DAQMODULE CAN folder

5... Open the DAQMODULE CAN.lvclass

6... Open the ACCESSORS folder

7... Open the MY OUTPUT CAN TASK folder

8... Open the VI that I want.

I suggest this:

1...  I pop up on this item in the project, and choose CREATE ALIAS.

2... An Alias appears in the project.  Aliases are ALWAYS at the top of the project, without opening any folders.  (maybe limit to 10 aliases)

3... You can't do anything to an alias except OPEN it or REMOVE it.

4... Double clicking (= OPEN) an alias merely opens all folders leading to the targeted item, and highlighting it.

5... You can create an alias to a VI, to a CTL, to a CLASS, to a FOLDER, to a BUILD SPEC, anything in the project.

6... Deleting the original item deletes the alias to it.

This seems simple to do, because you don't need a context menu for the alias (if it's a build spec, allow BUILD in the menu, if it's a VI, allow RUN, or OPEN, etc.) Forget all that.  Just OPEN it, or REMOVE it.

It's a ref to an item WITHIN the project, so copying a LVPROJ file should copy all the aliases.

Whaddya think ?

[wiebe@CARYA]

I usually make a new VI and put class constants and VIs in the diagram. Optionally save the diagram, optionally commit the VI... That's my 'shortcut scratchpad', and you can make it context sensitive, e.g. have more then one.

[BertMcMahan]

Can you programmatically open and close folders in a project via VI Scripting? If so you could implement this by creating a VI set to Run when Opened. You could also script this to be a right-click option in the Project Explorer, so you could right-click an item, "Create Alias", then auto-make an alias and stick it in an "Aliases" folder at the top of the explorer tree. Of course this would require a new VI to be saved to disk, so it's not *exactly* what you're looking for, but it might get you there quicker than having NI implement it.

[Darren]

I also accomplish this with bookmarks. My frequently-visited VIs have bookmarks that I can quickly access with the Bookmark Manager. If I need to get to the VI's entry in the project window, I use the Ctrl-Shift-E shortcut.