Don't force all LabVIEW windows to the top when one is selected

[User002]

My idea is to have LabVIEW cease and desist it's self-important modal behavior.  Not that I think LabVIEW is anything other than the most important application I run, but I don't think it should force its (many windows') way to the front of the line when I shift focus to a LabVIEW window.  I didn't find any other idea that matched this, but there is this discussion that covers the notion well.

An example case:  When chasing efficiency I frequently have Task Manager open to observe CPU usage when I change front panel controls.  I'll run the .vi and load Task Manager, but when I click on a front panel control ALL the LabVIEW windows come to the front and cover Task Manager:

So, my suggestion is to have only the selected LabVIEW window come to the front.  I get the impression that Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-e behavior are why LabVIEW controls its own window z-placement, but leaving their function out of it, my suggestion is just to change the modal behavior of LabVIEW windows.

[User002]

I'm actually surprised there isn't a note here marking this as complete, that it's addressed in NXG. I'm really frustrated with the Idea Exchange and to a degree with NI in general. There doesn't seem to be active feature development in Current Gen, other than token easy things. NXG isn't anywhere close to function parity, so I feel stuck in limbo where LabVIEW doesn't work and isn't getting better and NXG isn't stable enough to switch to.

I'm afraid of this: Things you should never do; Joel Spolsky

[AristosQueue (NI)]

> There doesn't seem to be active feature development in Current Gen,

Maybe we aren't adding stuff you are interested in, but there's a lot of work going into the current platform.

Last two versions of LabVIEW (2016 and 2017):

Channel wires. Malleable VIs. Backward-compatible run-time engine support. Fifteen percent performance improvement for pretty much all execution. Read-only Data Value References support. New flat controls palette. Live feedback for drag/drop. Variant Attribute access in the In Place Element structure.

Those are the big items. There are a lot more small features and bug fixes, as you note, especially among the right-click plug-ins that accelerate development.

>  surprised there isn't a note here marking this as complete, that it's

> addressed in NXG.

Good catch. Since it's already closed as dupe, I'll look at the other one. (Yes, I've seen the discussion that the other isn't really a dupe.)

[crossrulz]

Where was this idea closed as a Duplicate?  There is no comment that it was closed as a duplicate.  The status still says "New".  But it should be closed as "Completed in NXG".

[Darren]

National Instruments will not be implementing this idea. There is no major feature development planned for LabVIEW window management in the manner that would be required to implement this request.

[ThierryThermo]

Why is this absolute basic idea "declined" ?

I need to control a external application at the same time I use Labview.

Labview need lots of windows at the same time, but I just need one when I control  the external application.

When I click on Labview, I can't see my other app. that's the only program behaving so.

[wiebe@CARYA]

Why is this absolute basic idea "declined" ?

Because:

There is no major feature development planned for LabVIEW window management in the manner that would be required to implement this request.

[AristosQueue (NI)]

LabVIEW NXG has been redesigned to be a single window. The development effort to handle the window management issues of LabVIEW has been poured into that product.

[User002]

Things like this make me feel like contributing to the Idea Exchange is wasted effort. See:

https://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/Idea-Exchange-LabVIEW-Roadmap/idi-p/3953367

[AristosQueue (NI)]

It's not wasted effort -- the idea exchange has significantly guided the development of LabVIEW NXG, which will, someday, be LabVIEW. It's just not there yet.

[jon.terry]

Seeing as NXG development has stopped, I'm hoping to resurrect any potential for this to be implemented in Labview. Because current behavior can get really aggravating for all the reasons previously mentioned.