More improvement on wire labels

[mcmaxer]

The new and improved wire labels in LV2010 are neat, but could be even better if they did not loose their labels when wired into or through structures and/or sub-VIs:

My suggestion is that a wire, when labeled, should keep the label name when the wire value is not changed or able to be changed. Even through structures and sub-VIs, like most PCB routing programs with their "signal names".

It would also be reasonable that the wire label value should default to the name of the control where it is originating.

In this way, using the wiring-tool, you will get much more readablitity in your diagram when debugging code. A right click option of "highlight signal wire" could be the next step ;o)

[tst]

The basic reason is that the wires on the two sides of tunnel are not the same wire. They may carry the same data, but they also may not and figuring out exactly when this would be correct to do is probably too complicated to be worth it.

To save myself some effort, here's a similar recent discussion. It talks about the description, but the arguments are the same.

[Intaris]

In fairness I think a case where somehting is wired through a structure could be earmarked for retaining the wire label.  As soon as the wire passes through a potentially modifying operator in any of teh structure frames (For structures that have them) the name should not be propagated.

I know it's in reality a different wire, but I can see the logic behind the request for this one exception.

[RoyA]

Just had a discussion about wire labels during Huntsville, AL user group.  Would like to see enhancements like:

1.  Automatically have same name as control label/caption.

2.  When exitting from subvi, retain name of indicator.

3.  User defined default prefix/suffix (unnecessary to type >   >, if you use them).

4.  Define default position along wire (right, center, left) to anchor during 'cleanup'

I am sure other can add to this list.

[Intaris]

Just my 2c

1. Label, not caption (Caption can change during execution and this gets mighty confusing for debugging)

2. You mean only the label of the wire, right?  I'm not sure I agree, but I understand what you want.  Personally, I would much prefer for my calling VI to dictate what the wires are called, not my Sub-VI.

3. I don't udnerstand this idea, can you elaborate?

4. I don't use cleanup so I can't comment.

[Pelham]

In my opinion wire labels were many LabVIEW versions overdue.  They are extremely useful.  However, I was dismayed to find a few unexpected shortcomings.

1. When a wire is 'nudged' around using the keyboard arrow keys, the labels don't appear to move with them.

2. As has been discussed, they don't propagate into structures.  Seeing the wire's identity is unambiguous on the way into a structure, I would expect entry tunnels, sequence locals, etc. to pass the label.  (It would not of course be logical to expect labels to pass through the exit tunnels of case or event structures,  due to ambiguity, but it would be logical for them to exit from sequence structures, for loops or while loops.)

3. I would very much like to be able to pass the labels into a cluster built via the bundle function, but this appears not to happen.

[X.]

@Pelham: post idea 3 and I'll Kudo it (post a link to it here).

[PaulG.]

 Bump. Need this in a big way. When I label a wire coming out of an array index, for example I want that name to follow that wire wherever it leads. Even if it goes through a case selector or shift register. For all intents and purposes it is the same wire. It should keep it's label name.

[tst]

My suggestion - if you need this in a big way, write a plugin with the relevant logic - when you invoke it on a wire, it will either follow the wire to its source and get the label or it will find downstream wires and set their labels based on your wires. If you're upgrading to 2015, it can be a context menu plugin. If not, a QD plugin.

My guess is that you'll find the logic for this is not as simple as you might think, unless you're limiting the scope of which wires it will change.