topic Re: Keeping code on one screen passe? in BreakPoint

Keeping code on one screen passe?

PaulG. — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:25:11 GMT

I'm seeing it more and more. Code drifting past the boundaries of a full screen where you have to scroll and/or pan to see all of the block diagram. Guilty of it myself at times but intuition would say we should be more likely to stay on one screen as our screens get bigger. Hmmm.

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

SteveChandler — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 22:09:15 GMT

I try to keep it on one screen. But depending on the type of application I don't worry about it. If I am doing something with a lot of property and invoke nodes (scripting, xml parsing, ..) I don't worry about it in the horizontal direction but keep all code visible in the vertical direction. If I have several loops on one diagram I don't worry about it in the vertical direction but keep the width down to one screen. The loops do fit the screen horizontally and vertically. The one thing I never do is maximize either the front panel or block diagram.

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

Mark_Yedinak — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 04:11:35 GMT

@Steve Chandler wrote:

I try to keep it on one screen. But depending on the type of application I don't worry about it. If I am doing something with a lot of property and invoke nodes (scripting, xml parsing, ..) I don't worry about it in the horizontal direction but keep all code visible in the vertical direction. If I have several loops on one diagram I don't worry about it in the vertical direction but keep the width down to one screen. The loops do fit the screen horizontally and vertically. The one thing I never do is maximize either the front panel or block diagram.

I'm pretty much the same as you Steve. I do try to keep my code to a single screen but will allow for some scrolling. For example, on my top level VIs for the UI I may not fit on one screen. When I need to pan horizontally it generally consists of three areas. The left most portion is the initialization code, the center (which will fit on a single screen) will be the main code and the right most if necessary will be cleanup code. The initialization and cleanup code generally don't require much space but wont fit on the single screen with the main processing code.

If I have more than two parallel tasks I try to encapsulate each task as a subVI. This keeps vertical scrolling in check.

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

smercurio_fc — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:21:13 GMT

I write small diagrams and then have about three dozen VIs open at the same time.

Across two screens.

Hmmmm.....

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

Norbert_B — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:52:17 GMT

For myself, i try to keep both FP and BD smaller than one screen resolution if possible. While it is quite easy for most subVIs, it might get difficult for VIs more to the top of the hierarchy.

But there is one good style guide capturing this:

- If the FP or BD gets bigger than one screen resolution, make it scrollable in a single direction (horizontal OR vertical) only.

One thing i observe from time to time:

Developer tend to forget that screen resolution is not equal on all machines. So i quite often happen to recieve VIs with 1900 pixel broad windows or where the FP/BD is off screen on my system because of its position......

just my 5 cents,

Norbert

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

RobCole — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:01:17 GMT

Norbert, you hit on the other thing that used to bother me about screens. LabVIEW remembers which screen the VI was saved on. So if you have a VI that was saved on the second screen of a two screen system, it is almost off-screen when opened on a one screen system. At least you can grab the edge of it. It wasn't always that way. I remember being unable to edit VIs because they were completely off screen.

Rob

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

altenbach — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:58:45 GMT

Virtually all my VIs fit on one screen, except for the toplevel which has lots of parallel UI stuff and many property nodes (UI loop, Key action event loop, consumer loop, initialization, etc.). The individual parts are all sized such that they fit nicely on one screen. Since I typically only work on one of these parts, scrolling is minimized and I know where to scroll to work on something else. 😄

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

GuenterMueller — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 21:48:49 GMT

I usually use one screen and try to keep all FPs and BDs to have a good appearance on 1280 x 1024 resolution because I sometimes have to look at the code on a (not that up-to-date) notebook. FPs and BDs are never maximised but cover each other when many VIs are opened. Then, applying "Window>>All Windows ..." (or its shortcut <Ctrl+Shift+W>) allows me to select the FP/BD of desire. Usually I size this window to a height of about 1000 pixels and sort the titles by name. Works for me.

Two screens would involve too much eye movement

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

Thoric — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 15:26:33 GMT

When I was teaching myself LabVIEW many years ago I learned the "scroll in one direction only" rule fairly early, and tried to stick to it. To this day I still try to stick to it, but now I'm less concerned. It's all a bit moot, and is presumably about maintaining a certain amount of readability. Certainly, a smaller block diagram will be easier to peruse with a quick glance, but abstracting too much into subVIs can lead to unnecessary digging.

Nevertheless, I still aim to keep my block diagrams within a reasonable frame size. With the exception being my FPGA VIs, some of which are often many times the vertical resolution, and twice the horizontal (this is because FPGA Local Variables are safe, nigh recommended, and can't be honoured in subVIs). But if a block diagram starts to become larger than my screen size, and 'subVI'ing' components will be unreasonable then I stop worrying about it. C'est la vie.

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

Ben — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 21:04:49 GMT

Yes I still try to keep them on one-screen with the option to scroll in one direction.

Ancillary question:

How about keeping your FP to one screen?

Non-LVOOP wires carrying anything non-trivial can quickly require more than one screen to hol dthe terminals of large clusters. matching the FP layout to the icon terminal layout quickly decays into a bad joke (unless you left allign and top allign all opbjects in the cluster, which I will call cheating).

So what kind of rules do you apply to yourself for the FP?

my rule?

I try to keep at least one of the corners on the FP (without maximizing the FP, another thing I don't like since I generally have a pile of VIs open at the same time).

Curious,

Ben

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

JÞB — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 22:30:44 GMT

As well, Virtually all my BD fit on a standard Win 7 resolution 1920x1200 (Since View cluster as Icon became available!) . Provisos- My task bar is 4-5 rows high to accomidate a whole lotta panels. I leave 3 Columns of Icons uncovered on the desktop. Screen 2 is not for VI's NO NO NO (projects, Sequence Editor, Software Requirements all fit nicely over there)

Is 1920x1200 larger than recommended? The VI analizer default says so. What are we talking about here though? What is the reason for the Style recommendation? Can the code be read, understood and maintained right? Well documented code and some attention to wiring slinging fundamentals like direction of flow, logical layout of conpanes, MEANINGFUL icons and good naming conventions go a lot farther towards making your code better than cramming a BD into a messy un-commented 600x400 panel full of stacked sequences with dozens of sequence locals. And yet- "Block Diagram Too Big" gets all the bad press in the review- Maybe because its just so easy to identify and "suggest" a solution for (Make This chunk a sub-vi for no reason.)

Sloppy thinking makes sloppy code- the WHY is so much more important than size.

That being said- if you are considering hitting Ctrl+Shift+N- your code isn't readable

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

Ben — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 17:57:36 GMT

Good post Jeff.

This drives at a philosophical question in my minds eye.

As engineers and scientist we look to hard numbers to do evaluations (like the VI ANalyzer and its size limit) on a topic of STYLE !

I spent some time working at a company named Filmet (we won Photo finisher of the year back in the day when Photoshop was rare and memory cost a fortune) and was exposed (intended pun) to a shop full of artist. I learned a bit about how the human mind wants information presented in grpahical form. WHen you get a chance to look at some classic artwork you will find a standard pattern in many of them. The pattern of which I write is one that leads the observers eye from bottom left to top right.

See here for example.

(I thought pointallism was appropriate for computer program talk

The same "bottom left to top right" pattern can be seen in this sub-VI (just one I had handy).

and here is a sub-VI that will not fit on one screen.

Again the eye moves toward the top right corner.

But that is just one pattern that applies to "drawing" a diagram.

It is also said that we "WRITE" code. When we hoping we passed that "Creative Writting" Course so we can get onto to the Calc 3 we really wanted to take, the proffessors were probablly teaching us how to construct our writtings so that that reader "walk along the path into the house" or "describe the scene as we scanned our head" etc. A bunch of disogranized facts were hard to follow and remeber.

So if our diagrams "show" the work buy their form and layout we are commuicating to ourselves and to those that follow us in the code, what we are trying to do.

In my shop I pass all of the developers cubes on the way to mine. I can with a glance tell what my co-workers are working on.

So there is yet another way of evaluating diagram "style", "Can you guess what VI does from ten feet away?"

But all of my points made above are difficult to evaluate numericly.

(Well that is one blog article wasted )

Ben

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

smercurio_fc — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:14:51 GMT

Ben, I hate to be the one to say this, but some of still live/work (the latter in my case) in internet brown holes, where all we can get are poky low-end DSL connections. That image took FOREVER to load.

It's still a gorgeous painting. Saw the one in the Chicago Art Museum. Wow.

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

Ben — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:25:07 GMT

Sorry Saverio!

I guess there is a limit to how many points a single post can have.

I notified the moderator to edit with a low res version or whatever.

Ben

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

JÞB — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 14:35:45 GMT

@Ben wrote:

Sorry Saverio!

I guess there is a limit to how many points a single post can have.

I notified the moderator to edit with a low res version or whatever.

Ben

Just wondering how long that picture took to dial?

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

altenbach — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 15:27:00 GMT

@smercurio_fc wrote:

Ben, I hate to be the one to say this, but some of still live/work (the latter in my case) in internet brown holes, where all we can get are poky low-end DSL connections. That image took FOREVER to load.

Oh man, good thing I looked at this thread at home. Loading that via my cell phone during the commute would have been a serious mistake!

Almost 9MB is my data allowance for more than one day and my ancient phone would also have had problems rendenring it at all. 😞 😮

(Now it is about 200k. Ahh, much better!)

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

Andrey_Dmitriev — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:26:08 GMT

@Ben wrote:

...

and here is a sub-VI that will not fit on one screen.

...

Nice way to merge errors:

Thanks, Ben.

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

Andrey_Dmitriev — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:32:35 GMT

@Norbert_B wrote:

...

Developer tend to forget that screen resolution is not equal on all machines. ...

Oh, that's true. Right now I have 2560x1600 pixels screen, and its quite easy to keep my code fitted into single screen , but it could be terrible for other, so I put two PostIt stickers on the monitor's border somewhere around resolution 1600x1200...

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

Ben — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 13:32:13 GMT

@Andrey Dmitriev wrote:

@Ben wrote:

...

and here is a sub-VI that will not fit on one screen.

...

Nice way to merge errors:

Thanks, Ben.

You are very welcome Andrey.

This is one of the few times I can invite people to use the code I use in my applications. The top of those two sub-VIs is called "Error Fork Stacker" and was posted by Mike Porter in this thread. If you do use that function, I humbly encourage you to drop a Kuods on his post and maybe a tag or two to thank him for that very helpful piece of code.

It is superior to the normal merge errors in that it preserves multiple error message. If there are errors coming in on both legs the bottom error get packed inside the "source" of the other error code. Sure decoding multiple errors can get tedious but I would rather have the information and choose to ignore it than to not have the info.

Now on the other hand, I can not share the bottom of those two (called "Up Stacker") since it is part of the Event Loging Suite we use in our applications. But I bet you can figure out what is in it.

Ben

Re: Keeping code on one screen passe?

LV_Pro — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 15:45:54 GMT

Thought it looked like Mike's work, recognized the color scheme, one I first saw in 1997 when he and I started working together. He has been a big "error cluster/handling evangelist" since I've known him. He and I shared an apartment in those days, learned A LOT of LabVIEW from him.