String Control with automatic limit to single line

[Dennis_M]

During the development of several applications I always run into the problem that I have forgotten to set the "Limit to single line" flag for single line String Controls.

Why not set this flag automatically when you place the String as a single line on the front panel. And reset this flag if you enlarge the control to a size that can contain multiple lines?

Regards, Dennis

[AristosQueue (NI)]

I think your complaint is valid. I have my doubts about your proposed solution.

I don't like the "resize implies property change" behavior. I've been known to make my string bigger and then change the font size. Would changing the font size so that I'm back to only displaying one line of text put this option back to "limit to single line"? Would sizing the control back down to a single line put the option back? Would I really want to limit my debugging ability on VIs that are not generally visible to my end user by preventing me from pasting in text into a string control that has a carriage return in it? 

My preference would be to put two different controls into the palettes, one with multiline enabled and the other disabled.  But my guess is that this sort of thing would get us the same problems that we have with the mechanical action property on Boolean controls. The button controls without LEDs have a latching behavior but the button controls with LEDs do not, but people do not always recognize that there's a difference between the two controls. Similarly, the OK button has an Enter key shortcut but the Cancel button has an Escape key shortcut. In that Boolean case, we have two different configured controls in the palettes and at least we can explain the difference. In your case, both would look identical. At least we could name them differently.

The biggest problem with my alternative is that it assumes that this particular "allow multiple lines" option is such a high priority option that it is worth making it something that is in the user's face to choose between these, a higher priority than all the other options that could be set. I suspect someone could make the argument for "update value while typing", for example, being just as important.

In short, I'm open to something that makes this a more noticable setting, but I don't think this other editing action is the way to get it.

[dthor]

Why not just add a default behavior to the preferences? A checkbox for "Drop string controls/indicators/constants with 'Limit to Single Line' enabled." You could even add one for "Enable/Disable word wrap" as well...

I agree with AQ: the original suggested implementation could open up a whole can of worms. In my opinion, the best idea is to add a preference pane option.

[Darren]

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