LabVIEW Idea Exchange

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When using the Rearrange Cases window with a Type Specialization Structure, the case list only shows either Declined, Accepted or Ignored. This makes it difficult to know what cases are being reordered. Similar situations occur with a numeric case selector (just a list of numbers) and event cases (dynamic events with the duplicate default wire labels).

This idea is to add the subdiagram label of a case next to each entry in the case list. This would add some context to each item, and make rearranging cases quicker and less error prone.

Alternately (or in addition to the above) would be the ability to preview the contents of the selected case / subdiagram, much like the preview when selecting a dynamic dispatch VI in a class hierarchy. This would be useful for cases with no subdiagram label, or in the case of the type specialization structure, allow visual comparisons of which case should be evaluated in which order.

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Many of us using graphical programming for scientific applications, where we dealing with numbers, measurements, etc.

How often we grab to Windows Calculator to compute simple equations?

What about ability to enter something like 3,75*2,8 into any constant or control (in principle everywhere where we can put numbers) and then get computation result in this place:

Screenshot 2024-03-06 09.16.22.png

In the past I've worked in desktop publishing industry and using the software called "Macromedia Freehand MX", and that was really "killer feature", which saves huge amount of time.

This is how it works:

Or for example, 5 rotated copies:

Even in Color mixer simple computations are allowed:

Everywhere where I can put some numbers, in any dialog:

So, my suggestion to have the same in every numeric control or constant.

This is what I mean:

So, it should be allowed to enter here something like "3*5" or "42+3*5"

As MVP suggested to have the only (at least) base operations *, /, +, -, also combined as shown above, but may be "advanced" support (like fully offered by Formula String) is also not so bad, why not:

Anyway it should work everywhere, including constants on the Block Diagrams:

Also, for example, on Resize Objects Dialog:

Screenshot 2024-03-06 11.20.04.png

Or even in the Settings (in general everywhere for any numeric field across whole LabVIEW):

And also in Run-Time, of course, not only in Development Environment.

If you think that "always enabled" feature will be annoying, then I can suggest to make this optionally per Control/Constant Option:

Screenshot 2024-03-06 11.31.54.png

Or may be as global setting in the Options.

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"Find Callers" for Class Data

Hi,

When I use array constants on the block diagram I often expand them to show how many elements they contain - I even expand them one element further than their contents to leave no doubt that no elements are hiding below the lowest visible element:

Often it's not so important to know how many elements are in the arrays, nor even their values (one can always scroll through the array if one needs to know). But it can be very important to not get a false impression of a fewer number of elements than is actually present, for instance when auto-indexing a For-loop:

To be able to shrink array constants to a minimum size while still signalling that they contain more elements than currently visible, it would be nice with an indicator on the array constant when it's shrunk to hide elements (here shown with a tooltip that would appear if you hover on the "more elements" dots):

The information in the tooltip would be better placed in context help, but the important aspect of this idea is the "more elements" indicator itself.

Cheers,

Steen

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The Project Explorer Files view already contains the useful "Move on Disk..." option. It would be useful if, when a VI or CTL is owned by a lvclass or lvlib, an option named "Move to Owner Folder" (or similar) existed. This option would move the selected file to the folder that contains the lvclass or lvlib that owns that file. This action would be equivalent to using the "Move on Disk..." option, but would save the user from navigating the (potentially large) folder structure to find the right folder. In short, it would save a few seconds and would help ensure consistency. It would also encourage the best practice of storing owned VIs and CTLs in the same folder as their owner lvlib or lvclass (actions that are easy to do are performed more often).

For example

Screenshot 1: A project that contains two libraries

Screenshot 2: In the Items view, the mouse was used to drag C.vi from Library 1.lvlib to Library 2.lvlib

2 (edited).png

Screenshot 3: Typically, I would now press Ctrl + E to switch to the Files view, right-click the file, and select "Move on Disk...".

3 (edited).png

Notes

It would be great if the "Move to Owner Folder" menu item was also available when multiple items that are owned by the same owner are selected.
A related idea: It would be useful if, when using the Items view to move an item from an owner to another, LabVIEW would pop up a dialogue message similar to the following "Would you also like to move the file on disk to folder <insert here the folder path of the new owner>?". The dialogue would contain Yes and No buttons. This would save the user from having to switch to the Files view altogether.

Thanks!

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Right now, there's no way to easily open show a LabVIEW project file in the "native operating system file explorer" on Linux (for me on Ubuntu, that's the the Gnome "Files" Nautilus app and I can easily open a folder from a terminal/shell by executing an `open .` command).

Side Note: In VS Code (as described in the documentation), you can open to the location of a file or folder in the native operating system file explorer by right-clicking on a file or folder and selecting Reveal in File Explorer on Windows, Reveal in Finder on macOS, or Open Containing Folder on Linux.

Let's please add this to LabVIEW for Linux! 🙂

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Excel displays the number of selected cells.

1 (edited).png

VS Code displays the number of selected characters.

5 (edited).png

LabVIEW should display the number of selected items in the Project Explorer.

2 (edited).png

LabVIEW should also display the number of selected items on the block diagram and the front panel.

4 (edited).png

Notes

In the Project Explorer the functionality would be useful to count/monitor/audit the number of VIs and CTLs in a lvclass, lvlib, or in a virtual folder of these owners, etc. It would be nice to know at a glance "oh, there are 12 public VIs in this class".
The block diagram count functionality can become more useful in large projects and VIs. For example, I recently edited the block diagram of a VI in a DQMH-based project. The project contains 16 DQMH modules at the moment (more to be added). I wanted to check that the VI I was editing was calling the Start Module.vi public VI of each of the 16 modules (wanted to check that the VI would launch all DQMH modules). The only way to do this was to "manually" count the VIs on the block diagram. Selecting them and LabVIEW displaying "Count: 16" would have been easier.
In the block diagram the information displayed by LabVIEW could be more nuanced. For example, it could display the total number of items selected (subVIs, nodes, property nodes, etc), but also a breakdown based on item type: number of VIs, number of nodes, number of property nodes, etc. All these selection stats may occupy too much space for all to be displayed at once. Perhaps they could be displayed in an element that, when clicked, expands to present all the information.
The block diagram and front panel count functionality would enable programmers to quickly estimate the complexity of a VI. Pressing Ctrl + A on a block diagram to select all items, then looking at the selection stats would reveal the relative complexity of that VI.
If a whole structure is selected on the block diagram, then the count should return the count of all items contained in the diagram, not just the items displayed to the user. For example, if a case structure is selected, the number of items contained in all cases should be displayed.

Thanks

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Dark mode for LabVIEW IDE

On a block diagram string constant, there are shortcut menus to change the display style. Currently, we can change the style without making the selector visible. That leads to bugs when later programmers do not realize that the string they are editing is in a different mode. Currently, we have to choose "Visible Items >> Display Style" first, which makes the shortcut menu items useless (because then we just use the now-visible selector ring). In the future, when we change the style through one of the shortcuts, I would prefer that the selector automatically becomes visible.

Problem: Currently it is impossible to know in advance what errors (what error codes) a node or native VI can produce. (Native VI = VI that ships with LabVIEW)

For example, I recently implemented a module that communicates with another endpoint using the LabVIEW TCP primitives we know and love: TCP Open Connection, TCP Read, TCP Write, TCP Close Connection. In order to create robust software I needed to understand what error codes each of these primitives can generate, and in what circumstances.

Through initial testing I discovered that TCP Open Connection can generate errors 56, 62, and 66. I then handled these errors locally in the code.

Around two weeks later, during further testing of what I thought was a fully complete and tested module, the module unexpectedly started experiencing error 60 many times per second. The module had never experienced error 60 before. The module was configured to broadcast an event each time an error was detected. This flooded the listener (the DQMH tester VI that was listening to all broadcast events) with thousands of error messages per second. The tester VI front panel buttons became unresponsive, because the tester was flooded with so many incoming broadcasts. The only way to break out of the cycle was to abort the tester, then close the project to shutdown the module.

This way I learned "the hard way" that that TCP Open Connection can generate error 60 in certain circumstances, in addition to the error codes I had handled already.

Solution: The detailed help of each node and each native VI should list all error codes that can be produced by that node or VI. For example, in the case of TCP Open Connection, the detailed help should contain a description similar to the below.

TCP Open Connection can generate the following errors:

Error 56
Error 60
Error 62
Error 66
and so on listing here any/all error codes that can be generated by the node.

This list would be extremely useful, as it would make us (professional LabVIEW programmers) aware of the various error codes a node or VI could occur generate. This would encourage the programmer to think of ways to handle all those possible errors, thus resulting in more robust code.

By reading the "Explain Error..." message of each error code the programmer could also understand the circumstances in which the node or VI generates each particular error.

Notes

In summary, this idea suggests an improvement to the detailed help documentation of each node and native VI.
It should be possible to automate the creation of the lists for each node and native VI.
- For nodes whose source code is written in C++, a program could be created to scan the source code files and return the list of possible error codes generated by the function.
- For native VIs, VI scripting could be used to achieve a similar purpose and output the list of errors that could be generated by that VI.

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The problem that height of local variable is 17 pix, and terminal - 16 pix, but distance between terminals in unbundle function is 15 pix.

As result - aligning to vertical compress caused steps in wires:

Right nowterminals/local variables should be slighly overlapped for "step edge free" wiring.

Please synchronize size of these icons with distance between terminals (to 16 pixels - seems to be ideal size)

Not sure if it was already in Idea Exchange or not.

Andrey.

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Currently, when you right-click -> "Make Type Def" on a control / constant in a library VI, the new unnamed type definition is created outside

the library.

Also, it has the default control icon:

instead of a library control icon:

This leads to 3 additional tasks:

1. Drag and drop the control inside the library from the project explorer.

2. Edit the control icon to make it have the library control icon (with the horizontal slider glyph).

This is annoying because you need to copy it from another library control icon.

3. Go to the library properties and make "Apply Icon To VIs".

Bonus bug: If your new type contains a library-private subtype, the new control magically disappears from the project explorer when you click on it.

In comparison, the "Create SubVI" function works perfectly inside a library, i.e. it creates a VI inside the library and with the icon banner.

I think the "Make Type Def" function should behave the same to make library development more coherent and intuitive.

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Check out this nice readable diagram:

Whoa there pardner, not so fast. The control reference labeled "Numeric 1" is actually linked to the "Numeric 3" control. And the property node labeled "Numeric 2" is actually linked to the "Numeric 1" control. Etc., etc.

I see no reason to change the labels of Control References and Implicit Property/Invoke Nodes. If you need to document them beyond their label, attach a free label to them. We don't allow changing the labels of subVIs, so the precedent has been set. For the sake of diagram readability, we shouldn't allow changing labels of these objects either.

LabVIEW Idea Exchange

Show subdiagram label and/or preview in Rearrange Cases window

Allow simple arithmetical operations on Numerics like embedded Formula String

"Find Callers" for Class Data

Indicate that array constant contains more elements than currently visible

Wait (ms) with error pass-through

Allow changing numeric conversion type with selector tool

Project Explorer "Move to Owner Folder" option in Files view

Include link to LabVIEW User Manual under Help Menu

[Linux] LabVIEW Project Environment missing "Explore..." option (to show the file in the OS's native file explorer)

Allow Wire Labels to Dictate Name Inheritance in Bundles

LabVIEW should display the number of selected items in Project Explorer, block diagram, and front panel

Dark mode for LabVIEW IDE

Front Panel Terminal as Icon Should Respect User's Options Preference

Changing display style on string constants should make the style selector visible

The detailed help of each node and each native VI should list all error codes that can be produced by that node or VI

Drop-downs for Selecting Conditional Disable Structure Options

A faster & neater way to show Cluster Element Labels

Same Height of Unbundle by Name / Terminal / Local Variable

Type Def made inside a library VI should be part of the library

Disallow changing the label of control references and implicit property/invoke nodes