Better Indication That a Refnum is a Control or Indicator

[Darin.K]

One of those little things that winds up bugging me over and over again.  In almost every type of control/indicator I am accustommed to some type of visual clue that a given object is a giver or receiver of data.  Usually it is some combination of shading, increment/decrement buttons, something.  For Refnums (and DVRs in icon view), there is nothing as you can see from the top two pairs of images.

Open question:  Should the terminal in the DVR icon glyph change direction to reflect control/indicator of the DVR itself?  I can think about it and say no, but my initial response is always yes.

In the lower two pairs of images I at least change the color to reflect the system control/indicator background defaults.  Not bad, but it loses some of the shading effects.  Also a bit light against the system default background so a frame may be desirable.

My suggestions:

1) Do something (even if it is not exactly what I want).

2) Change the default shading, tweak frames as needed.

3) Fold the opposite corner for indicator.

(Ignore the fact that I was lazy and reflected the entire refnum icon, I suggest only the corner is switched)

Open question #2:  while I am at it, why does a VI reference control have an icon which also contains a reference glyph?  Seems like a strange Droste effect going on.

[GregFreeman]

---

My suggestions:

1) Do something

---

kudo from me for bluntness

[DeltaJ]

An small arrow in or out similar to the 'new' local and global variables. I think that'd be the most consistent design......

[altenbach]

Typically, these objects are not useful for the operator of the final program and they are typically hidden, so the control/indicator distinction is most useful when hooking up the connector pane.

I don't like the corner folding idea, because it is not intuitive what should be what.

Yes, little black triangles like on the terminal images of DVR controls would work. (notice that DVR indicators have the image of a control instead of an indicator, so that's fundamentally wrong ;))

Another option would be to use raised frames for controls and recessed frames for indicators. This is somewaht intuitive and could be remembered easily, after all data flows downhill (at least in the presence of gravity and in the absence of other forcefields :D)

[AristosQueue (NI)]

> (Ignore the fact that I was lazy and reflected the entire refnum icon, I suggest only the corner is switched)

Dang it. If you were serious, this is easy. 🙂

Kudos for the idea as a whole.

[JW-JnJ]

I like the small arrow idea that DeltaJ suggested. Maybe make it a black triangle like controls and indicators on the block diagram.

[sbus]

Using something that is consistent with already established graphics makes the entire thing much more intuitive.  Using the same small solid black triangle indicating the direction (control or indicator) when objects are displayed as icons that mirrors the way controls and indicatorsare displayed when not iconfied makes a lot of sense.