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Add a "Mouse Scroll" event

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If I have a standard VI that's hung, I can highlight execution, and then drill into the hung VI (reentrant or not) to see what's going on:

But...if it's a class override method, I can't do this:

(There is technically an exception: If the override is not reentrant, and you guess the correct override in the popup, then you can debug it.)

This experience would be so much better if I could drill into the overrides seamlessly, without being prompted for which override to look at, and with the correct runtime instance of the override popping up. This is the kind of thing where, on complex projects, this improved debugging could literally save me hours on some bugs.

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(Note that this idea has already been proposed and auto-declined. So I'm trying again, this time with a different UX, and pictures!)

I've got some code on my diagram:

I need to wrap the code in a case structure, so I do:

Then I connect a Boolean wire to the selector terminal and go on my merry wiring way. Unfortunately, I forgot to consider the fact that I need this code to run in the FALSE case, not the TRUE case. But since nothing is broken in my code, I don't realize my mistake until I start running things. I've made this mistake so many times over the years (the most recent being tonight), that I've decided to propose a solution.

There are plenty of times that I want the wrapped code to be in the TRUE case. There are also plenty of times I want the wrapped code to be in the FALSE case. With no obvious default that makes sense most of the time, here's what I propose:

If you interactively drop a case structure by dragging a rectangle around *existing* code, we float a button over where you let go of the mouse and give you a chance to make the visible frame the FALSE case instead of the TRUE case:

(I suck at Microsoft Paint, I'm sure somebody can come up with a better looking button or glyph)

If you click that button, then the case structure turns to the FALSE case. If you do *anything else*, the button goes away and the case stays TRUE.

With this proposed change, any time I wrap existing diagram code with a case structure, I'll be forced to think about whether the case needs to be TRUE or FALSE. And I'm given an easy out if it's supposed to be the TRUE case.

Fixed Iteration FOR loop option

Today, if we want a FOR loop with a fixed number of iterations, we need to wire a diagram constant to N. We could probably save a few clicks if we could click on N and type in an integer directly. It would also unclutter the diagram. This should of course only work if N is unwired.

Of course the N-Box would grow to the right to accomodate all digits

To later change the loop back to "normal", we would type N into the box or simply wire something numeric to N from the left.

As an example how it could look like, here's a simple cross product implementation (Yes, I know, LabVIEW already has a cross-product, so this is just to show the idea!)

Top: current implementation

Bottom: Same code after this proposed idea has been implemented

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It is not obvious that a NaN numeric constant can be created by simply typing "NaN" as value. What we see are weird constructs, e.g. "zero divided by zero" or "square root of -1" to generate a NaN on the diagram.

I suggest to add a NaN diagram constant to the numeric palette to make it more obvious.

(This is just a quick draft. Of course it should be matched in color and design to the other constants)

I have wasted ~~days~~ weeks of my life tracking down why dependencies are loaded in LabVIEW.

This is because the "Why is this item in Dependencies?" tool isn't particularly useful in larger projects. And it isn't particularly useful because it highlights any file in your project (and not in the dependencies) that is dependent (no matter how indirectly) on the chosen file.

In this example, if I click on "Why is this item in Dependencies?" on library C, I get pointed to a VI in the project (A.a) which has a very indirect dependency on library C.

It would be far more useful to me if I instead only got shown the VIs that directly depended on my dependency (even if they were in dependencies themselves). If I then wanted to follow this up the chain, I could just click on "Why is this item in Dependencies?" again, but on the found item.

Make Shift+Drag more usable

Pressing Shift and dragging an object with the mouse make it move only horizontally or vertically. Great!

Unfortunately Labview decides which direction to move (horizontally or vertically) based on the first pixel the mouse moves. So, if you want to move something horizontally, but while clicking your mouse moves one pixel vertically, you're stuck with that direction and can start over again. ☹️

"Normal" applications decide the direction to move based on the ratio of x/y mouse movement: If the mouse moved more in vertical direction, the user obviously wants to move that way, if the mouse moved more in horizontal direction, then that is the user's intent. This means you can switch the direction while dragging and you're not stuck to one direction!

PLEASE modify the annoying behavior of Labview accordingly!

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Hi,

Sometimes we have to check the execution of just a part of a long VI and I use to do is:

- set a breakpoint just before the part,

- run the VI,

- wait for the breakpoint,

- set highlight

- and follow the execution.

I believe that would be nice to set the highlight just like breakpoint clicking over the wire and, when the execution reaches it, show the execution.

I would like to have the ability to make a Front Panel background transparent without making the whole window transparent (where the later is currently possible through property nodes). This one item would expand the UI possibilities. It would allow for the creation of Front Panels that seem to be borderless similar to many splash screens, about screens, and gadgets. Below are some industry examples:

Adobe Splash Screen (No border, has shadow, not square)

Microsoft Word 2010 Splash Screen (No border, rounded corners)

Resource Meter Windows Gadget (No border, specialized graphic)

Windows Media Center Gadget (Empty-transparent space between two UI elements)

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Sometimes we have a need to do some mild synchronization between otherwise parallel tasks. Typically we would use a flat sequence (but there are also exceedingly fancy tools such as "Rendezvous"). Even a flat sequence is often overkill for the given situation: It is a 2D object with it's own diagram and input and output tunnels. We need to decide what should be inside and what should be outside.

I suggest to extend the idea to a 1D object: The "Synchronizer Bar". It is basically a flat sequence with zero frames, condensed to a single vertical line (Maybe we could even allow kinks in it???).

The function is very simple and immediately intuitive (as anything in LabVIEW should be!!) and can be described in a single sentence:

"No data can leave any of the tunnels until all tunnels in the structure have received data."

Ideally, we should be able to "free-hand draw" this structure interactively with the mouse and a tunnel will be automatically generated for each wire we cross.

Here is a dumb (but illustrative) example (ignore the code itself). That's how it could look like.

(At the moment I simply merged the edges of a flat sequence, but I am open for prettier suggestions ;))

Overall, it should be closely related to the flat sequence and include certain right-click actions (e.g. Add frame before/after, which would expand it into a flat sequence).

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It's a little annoying to try to draw long wires to a terminal that's currently off screen -- you have to hold your mouse at the edge of the screen and LabVIEW slowly scrolls the window (Shift will speed this up a little bit). Currently, neither the mouse wheel nor the touch pad work for panning/scrolling while a wire is currently in progress.

As an improvement, it would be great if the mouse wheel allowed panning the diagram while the new wire was still in progress.

See the attached video.