Protecting Project Libraries

You can limit editing permission by locking or password-protecting LabVIEW project libraries. When you lock a project library, users cannot add or remove items and cannot view items that you set as private. When you assign a password to a project library, users cannot add or remove items or edit project library properties without a password. Users can open the Project Library Properties dialog box, but all dialog box components except protection options are disabled. Users must unlock the project library or enter a password to enable the dialog box components.

Note  Adding password protection to a project library does not add password protection to the VIs it owns. You must assign password protection to individual VIs.

Complete the following steps to set levels of protection for a project library.

1. Right-click the project library icon in the Project Explorer or stand-alone project library window and select Properties from the shortcut menu to display the Project Library Properties dialog box.
2. From the General Settings page, select one of the following options to apply to the project library.
   • Unlocked (no password)—Users can view public and private items that the project library owns and can edit the project library and its properties.
   • Locked (no password)—Users cannot add or remove items from the project library, edit project library properties, or view private items that the project library owns. For example, if you are developing a project library and do not want anyone to view private files, you should lock the project library.
   • Password-protected—Users cannot add or remove items from the project library, edit project library properties, or view private items that the project library owns. Users must enter a password to edit the project library. For example, if you are developing a project library and want only a few people on the development team to have editing permission, set a password for the project library and give the password to those people.
3. If you select Password-protected, click the Enter Password button to enter the password.
4. Enter a password in the Authentication dialog box and click Verify.
5. Click the OK button to incorporate the changes into the project library and close the dialog box.

Note  Applying a password for a project library automatically stores the password in the LabVIEW password cache, which gives you access to make changes to the project library as if you had entered the password. You can remove the password from the cache by restarting LabVIEW or by clearing the password cache from the Environment page of the Options dialog box.

You also can use the Lock State:Set method to configure protection options programmatically.