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If you are not using the Data Event Terminals in an Event Structure, you might customarily hide them - roll them up so that only one terminal is showing. I would like to hide that remaining terminal. The idea is to not grey-out the Remove Element option when you are down to one terminal. That way, you can remove it. A stub remains to right-click on in order to bring the terminal(s) back if required.

 

24498iD9D667DE43F77BE8  

See the picture below for an example of (what I consider to be) a frustrating "feature".

Why delete the elements? Keep the elements and the element style types as is, just convert my cluster to the new style type.

Arrays also do this, but since we tend to spend more time designing clusters, it's far more frustrating than arrays.

 

 

 

ClusterReplace.png

It would be really nice if double-clicking column header separators in tables, trees, and multicolumn listboxes automatically resized the columns based on their contents (like Microsoft Excel). This would be useful in these types of controls and indicators at both edit and run time. It would also be useful to have this capability interactively (initiated by the developer or user) and programmatically (through properties or methods).

It can be difficult to go back to the Search Results window when searching for subVIs or text in a project with many open VIs.

 

It'd be great if the Search Results window had an "Always on top?" option. The screenshot below shows a possible implementation, using a tickbox.

1 (edited).png

I'd be happy for the default value of the tickbox to be false (unticked). The default behaviour would be identical to the current behaviour.

 

When the option is ticked the Search Results window would float on top of other VI windows, similar to how the Probe window floats on top.

 

This would make life easier when going back and forth between a few results, with many VIs already open, especially when so many VIs are open that all LabVIEW windows have collapsed into one tall list in the Windows taskbar.

 

This feature is not terribly impactful, but has a high benefit-to-effort ratio, due to the very small implementation effort.

 

Thanks

My idea is to have LabVIEW cease and desist it's self-important modal behavior.  Not that I think LabVIEW is anything other than the most important application I run, but I don't think it should force its (many windows') way to the front of the line when I shift focus to a LabVIEW window.  I didn't find any other idea that matched this, but there is this discussion that covers the notion well.

 

An example case:  When chasing efficiency I frequently have Task Manager open to observe CPU usage when I change front panel controls.  I'll run the .vi and load Task Manager, but when I click on a front panel control ALL the LabVIEW windows come to the front and cover Task Manager:Modal.png

 

So, my suggestion is to have only the selected LabVIEW window come to the front.  I get the impression that Ctrl-Tab and Ctrl-e behavior are why LabVIEW controls its own window z-placement, but leaving their function out of it, my suggestion is just to change the modal behavior of LabVIEW windows.

When you develop with multiple LabVIEW versions, it is sometimes difficult to identify which version you're using or launching based on the icon of the LabVIEW EXE:

 

taskbar.png

 

Here's my Windows 7 taskbar with, among other things, LabVIEW 8.0, 8.5, 8.6, and 2009 icons.  Which one is which?  There are ways to tell, but it sure would be easiest if the version number were overlayed on the icon.  Note the Visual Studio 9.0 icon in the taskbar...I think we should do something very similar with the application icons of future LabVIEW releases.

 

NOTE: The icon should also reflect differences between the 32-bit version of LabVIEW and the 64-bit version of LabVIEW

In a simple project, the main entry point into an application is usually easy to find:

simple.png

 

However, for more complex projects (particularly those utilising libraries/classes) it may not be obvious where to begin:

complex.png

 

Proposal:

LabVIEW should provide a mechanism for tagging one or more VIs such that they are easily accessible to someone unfamiliar with the project. 

 

One possible implementation:

links.png

  • Display tagged items as links at the top-level of the project.
  • Links would be pinned to the top row
  • Link names would be editable and need not correspond to the name of the item they link to. (e.g. The link "main" may point to "WidgetTester.lvlib:GUI.lvclass:launcher.vi")
  • For minimal confusion, developers should be encouraged to name the first link "main" (or similar)
  • In principle links could point to anything interesting, not just the main VI.
  • Double-clicking a link should open (or navigate to?) the target item

 

In some cases the list of context menu items extends beyond the vertical screen height (for example when creating a property for a control). The only way to scroll up or down this list using the mouse is by hovering over the small arrows at the top and bottom (and quickly moving the mouse away to stop scrolling).

 

mouse_wheel_scroll.png

 

This idea is to enable mouse wheel scrolling on context menus where the list of items is scrollable (the scroll arrows are visible) and the mouse pointer is hovering over the list. This allows for precise scrolling with much fewer mouse movements.

LabVIEW 2021 now has this pop-up, which lets you know if you still have VIs running in the background when you try to close a project: 

_carl_0-1655215157557.png

Great!  Because previously you were alerted that some VIs were still running, but not which ones. So this helps substantially with debugging.

 

However, I usually just want to abort these VIs without closing my project. There's still no (obvious) way to either open or abort these still-running VIs. That leaves me twiddling my thumbs (often for several minutes on large projects) while I close and re-open the project.

 

The request: Add the ability to either open or abort these running VIs from this window.  It could be as simple as adding an "Abort All" button...or even adding documentation on how these could be closed:

_carl_1-1655216075971.png

 

(And yes, obviously the correct solution here is for me as the developer to fix the bug that's leaving these VIs running... however, in the real world, sometimes this is either lower priority than other issues, or falls onto someone else's plate...and in the meantime you're left regularly waiting for your project to reload.)

When a 1 Dimensional array of any type is showing only a single element, LabVIEW forces a horizontal scrollbar. I couldn't find any documentation or reasoning behind it. It's really annoying and ruins UI design that Vertical is the normal scrolling direction for just about everything else ever and LV messes that up for some seemingly arbitrary reason.

The "Probe Display" pane of most default probes should have indicators that are set to "Fit to Pane". The worst offenders, in my opinion, are Strings and Variants...I often find myself cursing the fact that I can't see more of the data, and usually have to copy & paste into Notepad++ or something to actually see what I'm looking for.

 

Yes, you can make custom probes for this behavior. But it should be native.

 

probe.png

You can currently pin LabVIEW projects, VIs, and other files to the file lists in the LabVIEW start dialog as shown in the pictures below:

 

Ryan_Wright__2-1712932470451.png

Ryan_Wright__3-1712932507143.png

Ryan_Wright__4-1712932555995.png

 

It would be really nice if the Recent Projects and Recent Files menus in front panels and block diagrams automatically included the same files at the top of the menu item lists (and in the same order) as illustrated in the pictures below:

 

Ryan_Wright__5-1712933140673.png

Ryan_Wright__7-1712933697562.png

I think structures should have a better label system. Currently I use free labels of the same color as the loop which looks great and makes the code easy to read and debug. But if I resize my loop I have to manually resize the label as well. I think this should be built into a right-click option.

 

(structure) rick-click » visible items » Structure label

 

Integrated Structure Labels.PNG

I would like the ability to probe the loop iteration terminal ("i" in For and While Loops) without the need to wire it to something (indicator, edge of structure,...).

I started a discussion here

 

Although the suggestion about using a template is quite nice, I would still like to be able to create a new VI (or sub-VI) from within a project.  I never use the default icon provided by NI.  -- N-E-V-E-R --   That's a personal choice. 

 

So since I never use that icon, the fact that creating a new VI which auto-generates an icon that is never used, renders that feature useless.  Let's see how many users of LabVIEW also find the default icon useless....  (Kudos would be a way to take a poll).

 

A nice feature would be to allow the developer to create her / her own default icon.  The default icon is probably somewhere in the ini file (I have not checked).  One of the Options could be to select if the user wants to use their own default, and if so, browse to the icon or have an editor create one.

 

In my case, when creating a new VI, it ends up with a icon like this:

 

 

 

I would be happy to have a default icon that looks like this:

 

 

 

The idea I am proposing is that developers should be able to have the icon of their choice as a default icon.

 

And may plenty of kudos adorn this thread..  🙂

 

Spoiler
 

 

When refactoring code, I often find myself in a situation where I've broken dependencies. Maybe it's a name change, or a library path change. This is precisely when I'm most in need of the ability to just replace the missing file (be it a VI, control, class, or PPL).  Yet this is when LabVIEW decides that nope, it can't be that easy:

 

_carl_1-1709776637528.png

 

Instead you have to track down every instance and manually swap them out.

 

The request: allow us to replace missing files using the "Replace with..." option.

 

Currently, the block diagram has an endlessly useful feature. I use it every day - the Distribute Tool.

 

FrontPanelSpacingTool.png 

 

 

The following feature would be AWESOME for expediting BD readability:

 

BlockDiagramSpacingTool.png

I don't like the way that long file paths are shown in path controls and indicators:  If the path is longer than the textbox (and it usually is!), the user only sees the first several levels that fit.  This can be pretty confusing.

 

One way to solve this issue is to truncate the path in the middle in such a way that the filename or last folder (which is usually what's most important) is always shown.  I've seen this in other UIs and it should be a natural thing for users to understand.

 

Here's an illustration:

truncate_path_ctrl.png 

 

I think this should be a built in feature of the path controls and indicators, accessible through right-click menus and/or the properties menu of the control at edit time.

Problem: When an error occurs inside some DAQmx VIs, the error source (the string component of the error cluster) does not contain the call chain. This means that it is impossible to know the location where the error occurred based on looking at the error message.

 

Real-world example: The other day I encountered DAQmx error -200477 on a cRIO-9045 that uses DAQmx to acquire data from several different C-Series modules. The real-time application that was running on the cRIO contained an error handling module, which correctly logged the error to file. I saw the following when using PuTTY and the linux 'cat' command to display the contents of the error log file.

 

1.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

Notice that the error message does not contain any information as to where in the codebase this error actually occurred. This meant that I had to spend a few minutes inspecting the moderately large codebase before identifying the likely location of the error. Running subsequent tests I was able to confirm that that was the location of the error. The error was soon understood and fixed.

 

Root-cause: The root-cause of the issue (lack of call chain information) is the DAQmx Fill In Error Info.vi. In the real-world example above the error was occurring inside the DAQmx Timing (Sample Clock).vi.


4.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

The block diagram of this VI is seen below:

2.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Any LabVIEW errors generated inside that VI are generated by the DAQmx Fill In Error Info.vi. This VI is, of course, essentially a simple translator between the return type (I32) output of the Call Library Function Node and a native LabVIEW error. That VI has an unwired input named depth whose default value is 1. This means that only the last link of the call chain is inserted into the error message.

 

3.png

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Solution: Always insert the complete call chain inside all DAQmx error messages.

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:

_carl_0-1719594144175.png

_carl_8-1719594621558.png

 

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

_carl_5-1719594530350.png

_carl_6-1719594541579.png

_carl_7-1719594559755.png

 

(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.