Show Names on Call Library Function Nodes

[JackDunaway]

Did you know you can make property nodes and invoke nodes smaller by not showing the names?

Well, forget you know, it's a terrible idea to hide that information! You lose the self-documentating nature of LabVIEW. I use this as a comparison for Call Library Function Nodes (CLFN) - by default, these are dropped on the block diagram without showing names. I propose that the default is to show names for CLFNs for the sake of documentation, and so you don't have to hover over each terminal to find the one you're looking for. The biggest perk is simply the name of the function on the banner of the node. YES, there is a tradeoff between BD real estate and documentation, but I think "Names" trumps space virtually all the time.

[altenbach]

I am OK with long names as default.

I agree that the "names" version are often much clearer.

For me it's a minor issue, because I use very few CLFNs and my connectors are clear enough (each has a different datatype), so I probably would revert to "no names" in most cases. The names could get a bit too big for my taste, e.g. "fileSystemNameBufferLenght". What is the max number of characters allowed? We don't want it two screens wide!

(psst... I even have some "no-names" property nodes on some of my diagrams. Don't tell anyone! ;))

I think NI should start changing all the "atomic" VI.lib Vis that just wrap a CLFNs to name format. They would clearly look better and also would expose some of the sloppy coding. For a demo, let's have a look at something found deep inside the exponential fit (first image). Once we change to name format (second image), things (1) can be arranged much nicer and (2) we now see that one terminal (top) has no label. 😉

These two images show the advantage of names in terms of code clarity.