LabVIEW Idea Exchange
It has been a few months since a suggestion has been made to do something about the For Loop, so if nothing else it is time to stir things up a little bit. There have been several suggestions to do something with the iterators, for example:
http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/Smart-Iterators-with-Loops/idi-p/967321
http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/for-loop-increment/idi-p/1097818
None of these has really gained traction, and heck, I haven't settled on any of them myself. In most cases I am satisfied with a workaround, usually involving the Ramp VI.
There is one case where I am not happy with the workaround. I happen to need reverse iteration values quite often (N-1,N-2,...0). With the N terminal pinned to the top-left corner I have little choice but to do the following and start zigging and zagging wires:
I would simply like a reverse iteration terminal which can be moved around at will and simply counts down. Doesn't have to look like I have drawn it, that just happens to be intuitive to me. Naturally this terminal (and the normal iteration terminal) should have the option to be hidden.
I thought about having the option to have the loop spin backwards, similar to reversing all auto-indexing inputs and having the iteration terminal count down, but I just could not decide what to do about auto-indexed outputs. My G-instincts tell me that they should be built in the order of loop cycles, my C-instincts tell me I am building array[i] and if i goes in reverse order, so should the array elements. For now I say, forget it, and just stick to the simple terminal. Array reversal is essentially free, so I at least have a workaround there.
