Independent Probes

[Amir_Y]

I suggest a probe that will be independent of its diagram.

You will probe a wire , than you may close the front panel of the VI containing it without loosing the probe.

The probe will stay active in the "Probe Watch Window".

If you will click on "Find Wire" the block diagram (and the front panel) will be opened.

Advantages:

1. Reduce the number of open windows.

2. Probe VIs with Modal appearance.

3. Easily probe VIs that has their front panel placed in a Sub Panel.

[JackDunaway]

This Idea is not completely original, but it addresses a topic that bites me daily: the necessity to bring up the BD of a VI in a Subpanel for highlight execution or probing. I don't remember seeing this addressed yet on the Idea Exchange, so Kudos.

Most of the problem I have with probing a VI in a SubPanel would be mitigated by being able to CTRL+Double Click that item in the Project Window to bring up the BD of that VI.

On this topic, whenever you bring up the block diagram of a VI inserted in a SubPanel, the whole SubPanel "blinks" (inverts colors for a moment) to draw attention to itself. Something about this action shifts the parent FP (the one that contains the SubPanel) over about 3px to the right (probably because the width of the SubPanel is 1030px, and the window is 1024px - this is because of the border width of the SubPanel). I must always remember to not commit that parent VI to SCC, since I don't want a FP that's "off" checked in. The other option is calling a zero origin function on the parent after probing a VI in the parent's SubPanel.

[JackDunaway]

OK, originally I linked to "Saveable 'Probe Sets' and 'Breakpoint Sets'" because I considered this Idea a near-duplicate of that Idea, but then it hit me - these two Ideas are hardly related.

The other Idea is for a persistent file to be written to your hard drive so that you can re-open 'probe sets' between multiple programming sessions. This Idea is simply to keep the probes active in the Probe Manager within one session, and independent of whether you close the Block Diagram.

At first I liked this Idea because it simply pointed out the difficulty of probing Modals and SubPanels. Now that I really understand this Idea, I really, really like it.

Over and over again, I meticulously set up half a dozen probes or so, then mechanically exit the VI because I'm not interested in the BD, I'm interested in the probe data. Unfortunately, of course, closing the window nukes all those probes I just set up. Kudos++ for the implementation of an intuitive behavior that I still consistently try to use since the 2009 Probe Watch Window was introduced.

[Amir_Y]

I have found a problem in my suggestion:

as I wrote, when you click "Find Wire" the block diagram and the front panel should be opened, but it can't be done if the front panel window appearance is set to modal or if the front panel should be placed in a sub panel.

I thought maybe I'm onto something bigger here: maybe the front panel shouldn't be opened at all.

When you click "Find Wire" you only want to find the wire, not the panel.

I understand it's contradict the perception that block diagram can't be opened without its front panel.

Do you think I'm going too far with it?

Message Edited by JVSemi on 05-06-2010 11:47 AM

[JackDunaway]

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JVSemi wrote:

...

I understand it's contradict the perception that block diagram can't be opened without its front panel...

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See Aristos' comment #7 on Allow Only the BD to be opened without FP. While you're there, drop a Kudos.