Clean Up - Not Mess Up

[peos]

The Clean Up button was a huge improvement in LabVIEW. Now I can concentrate on how to make my program works, not on what it looks like. Just put the blocks and wires anywhere on the Block Diagram and let CleanUp move them to a suitable space. But unfortunately, CleanUp can sometimes make the program look rather messy. A Format Into File may be placed at the bottom, and the format string at the top. Things that naturally belong together should stay together. Manual correction is waste of time; it will be messed up again on next cleanup. The only solution is to put some code in a sequence. But a feature should not be used for other purposes than it is meant to, if you want other people to understand your program.

What we need is a light box that can be placed around code that should stay together. This can be like the Flat Frame on the Decorations palette. It does not work now; cleanup will move it outside any code.

CleanUp is just a minor problem in this small program. In large programs it might be much worse.

[JackDunaway]

Just a note: be careful when using the FSS to group code since it enforces a different execution order. The current alignment chosen by the BDCT appears to have done a good job visually demonstrating all the math functions can be executed concurrently (although it could use some help routing the scalar DBLs and strings!).

You also may want to check out the Diagram Cleanup Feedback group on the Communities - it's a little sleepy over there, so perhaps ideas like this will drum up some discussion.

[AristosQueue (NI)]

Except for the 2 extra kinks in the string format wires (those wires could be just "right then down" instead of "right down right down"), I'm happy with how diagram cleanup handled this diagram.

[Darren]

Here's a link to an idea I posted that I think is closely related to this idea:  Tell Block Diagram Cleanup what "Clean" VIs Look Like

If diagram cleanup "learned" how you wanted your VIs arranged in the code above, you wouldn't need to block off any sections of your diagram.

[Darren]

Any idea that has received less than 5 kudos within 5 years after posting will be automatically declined.