Why is Start Page Recent Projects Full Path random?

[Mark_L]

On the LabVIEW start page there is a section for Recent Projects.  Some of the projects appear with the full path and some appear with only the project name.  
I looked in LabVIEW.ini and do not see any different in the "RecentFiles.projectPathList=" category that might be an indicator.  

Can any tell me why this occurs?

[pincpanter]

Multiple projects with the very same name will appear with the full path in order to distinguish between them.

[altenbach]

The ones with the full path are projects that have the same name but exist (or have existed) in two locations. For example if you would move a project folder elsewhere, both old and new would be in the list once you open from the new location.

[Mark_L]

Thank you both.

Looks like a reason to keep the "Maximum entries in recent project templates list" lower.  

[altenbach · Accepted solution]

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@Mark_L wrote:

Looks like a reason to keep the "Maximum entries in recent project templates list" lower.  

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That won't really help in your case, you can have duplicates even if there are only two entries. 😄

For me it is an endless struggle to keep the GSW clean, since I constantly open VIs and projects from the forum that I most likely never open again ever, so my list is always cluttered with irrelevant stuff. Editing the ini file is frustrating because it is all in one long entry. Maybe I'll eventually write a simple cleanup tool that would get all entries from the ini file, puts them in a listbox with different symbols or colors depending on type (pinned entry, unique entry, duplicate entry, path no longer exist, path is in "downloads" folder hierarchy, etc.) with a few buttons to clean up (remove entries with invalid paths, remove entries from downloads hierarchy, etc. ).

You might also vote for this important idea.... Thanks!!!!

[Mark_L]

I kudoed your link.  

Good that NI put this in NXG but since it is no longer we need this in LV.

[pincpanter]

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@altenbach  ha scritto:

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For me it is an endless struggle to keep the GSW clean, since I constantly open VIs and projects from the forum that I most likely never open again ever, so my list is always cluttered with irrelevant stuff. Editing the ini file is frustrating because it is all in one long entry. Maybe I'll eventually write a simple cleanup tool that would get all entries from the ini file, puts them in a listbox with different symbols or colors depending on type (pinned entry, unique entry, duplicate entry, path no longer exist, path is in "downloads" folder hierarchy, etc.) with a few buttons to clean up (remove entries with invalid paths, remove entries from downloads hierarchy, etc. ).

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Entries that no more exist are removed from the list when you try to open them. If one can manage to put "transient" code in a temporary directory (say Documents\Tmp), renaming that directory (say to Documents\Tmps) would enable a quick way to get rid of all their links. This is the best option I can think, apart of developing a specific vi as you suggest.

[altenbach]

Yes, invalid entries disappear, but not automatically. One could even argue that they should remain when opening fails, because they could be on e.g. a network location that is just temporarily down.

I would actually prefer a way to optionally specify a hierarchy that should never populate the GSW lists (e.g. ...\downloads\ in my case) or alternatively only allow entries from specific hierarchies (e.g. C:\user\...\LabVIEW Development\... in my case).