LabVIEW Idea Exchange

This recent idea reminded me of something I have wanted for quite some time now:  the ability to determine if a property is read or write based on wiring, not some half-buried option in the right-click menu.

The basic idea is simple:  all properties have two terminals, one for writing and one for reading (except read-only of course).  No right-clicking, just wire up the direction you want.

The bottom case is a bit interesting.  I see a few possibilities:

1.  Passthrough (cosmetically saves branching, crossing, etc.) Same behaviour regardless of errors.

2.  Read then write : returns previous value.  What happens if there is an error?  Passthrough, old value?

3. Write then read: almost always passthrough.  In case of error would it return old (ie. actual value) or passthrough?

4. Do not allow this.

I would expect it to perform the write and then the read (3) or passthrough (1).  What is more important to me is the actual value and not the intended value.  Mentally I just see data flowing into then out of the PN when both are wired. 

Bottom line:  I see no reason not to permit the wiring to determine read or write of a property.

If there is a cop-out lack of consensus and simultaneous connections are not allowed, I would at least ask for a keyboard modifier (say shift) such that I can shift-drag to expand the PN and get the same property repeated instead of going down the list.  Then I could at least do the write+read with a lot less mouse movement.

The Swap Values node only supports a Boolean input on the '?' terminal.

It should also support an error cluster input, in the same way as the Select node (pictured) and many other nodes with Boolean inputs.

Let's Encrypt is an Certificate Authority (CA) that provides FREE TLS certificates for people and organisations to secure their websites and servers. Their certificates are valid for a maximum of 3 months, but client applications can automatically update the certificate when due.

It would be very nice to have this functionality in the NI web server. Exipiring certificates are cumbersome to manage.

A portal view to the Front Panel elements from the Block Diagram through a feature like "View As Portal". This would be especially useful in the case of G codes doing calculations, simulations, and modelings in the Block Diagram for people like researchers, scientists, and educators.

Another for the wish list.

It would be great if the right-click context menu on a case structure had small glyphs to the left of the text (think similar to the TortoiseSVN context menu for those that know what I am talking about).

The reason behind my request is that it often takes me quite a while (a few seconds really, but it slows me down), to figure out which menu item will duplicate a case and which will delete a case. For some reason my brain interprets duplicate and delete as the same and I always have to think about it.

A simple "+" glyph next to add, a "-" next to delete etc would go a long way to making those menu choices a lot simpler.

See attached pic for an mock up.

 There are probably lots of menus that could benefit from something like this.

Problem Statement

I often find myself debugging code that seems to have "hangged" and I want to find out which VI is causing the "hang" (maybe it's waiting on some event/queue/message/timeout or maybe it's stuck in an infinite/long loop).  There's no really easy way to figure out which subVI (or perhaps a node) is not returning from its call.

My Work-Around

The way that I currently do this is to start opening up VIs and looking at their "Run Arrows" (the run buttons on the VI toolbar) to see which subVIs are currently "running" (being called).

Running (Top-Level VI)

Running (Sub-VI of a Running Top-Level VI)

  << This is what I look for

Not Running (Sub-VI of a Running Top-Level VI)

This technique works OK, but it takes a lot of time to track down the running VI (in applications where there are LOTS of VIs), since you have to just start opening up all your VIs a looking at their run arrows.

Question: Is there any way to look at the run state of a VI using VI Server or Scripting?  Unfortunately, the VI Execution.State property is "Running" for all three states shown/illustrated above (the "Idle" state is for VIs that are not reserved for execution, meaning they are not in the hierarchy of a running top-level VI).  Maybe I'd also add to my feature request that it would be nice if there were a way to interrogate this state using VI Server or Scripting.

Possible Solution(s)

What would be nicer is if I could ask LabVIEW to Find all Running SubVIs/Nodes and visualize them by their VI Hierarchy.  Maybe we could have an option to show the run state in the VI Hierarchy window.  And, maybe there could be a way to only show running VIs (hide all Not Running / Idle VIs).

Now, I realize that the VI hierarchy window doesn't have any way to visualize multiple subVI "instances" of a VI, but maybe that could be an option as well (Show all SubVI instances.  Also, it would be cool if we could show "Clone" instances of reentrant VIs... but, I digress.

Also, the VI hierarchy window only shows VIs, it doesn't show nodes/functions that might be running (and what's causing my code to "hang").  It might be nice if we could also include nodes, at least for the purpose of helping me find out which nodes are running.

So, I'll end by just stating that I need some easier way to figure out why my application appears to have hung and I hope that this "Idea" leads to more discussion and maybe some more features in LabVIEW to help me debug and visualize my applications.

Do you have any ideas for how to better debug applications that appear to have hung?  Do you have ideas for new LabVIEW features that could help?

Thanks!

Have you ever placed a background image on your front panel to make it look good, but then found that most of the controls and indicators covered everything up?

Ever wish LabVIEW had more appearance customization to make better looking GUIs?

I would like to propose an opacity slider control in the appearance settings tab of front panel object properties. The added setting would not make the entire objects opacity change; ideally the opacity control would only affect the borders and grey space. With this added control users can make better looking user interfaces without having to make custom controls.

Take a look at the difference:

Not Ideal Front Panel with background image and NO Opacity Control

Beautiful Front Panel with background image that you can still see by setting Opacity Control to 50%

Before and After Appearance Settings tab in the Properties Window for a waveform graph:

Currently the only easy way to implement a similar type of setting is go fully transparent by using the tools palette paintbrush tool and setting the color to transparent:

Kudos and share this idea if you want it to happen!

We have (collectively) complained about coercion dots many times on various LV forums -- they are nearly invisible and there are three different kinds, which require different levels of concern. The problem is that there are very few pixels within a terminal and there's no space for any pattern to differentiate the three kinds of coercion (and changing colors is a problem for reasons discussed here in the Idea Exchange).

Another LV developer had an idea that I liked: add an option to view giant coercion dots. We have avoided this because coercion dots bigger than the terminal would interfere with wiring. However, many developers have a policy of eliminating all coercion dots on their diagrams. For those who have such a policy, they could eliminate the coercion dots as they work, and thus might not see any problem from such large dots. Large dots would solve lots of other usability problems that coercion dots have today.

This option could be something in Tools>>Options, but I'd rather it be something in the View or Edit menus so it can be quickly toggled on or off with a shortcut key.

These graphics are "programmer art" -- I just made the three dots look different. Please sumit alternate images for the three dot types if you have better style suggestions. I did make the three dots differ in both pattern and color so that we avoid problems with colorblindness. The type-only was a solid dot, the widening coercion is a bulls eye, and the narrowing coercion is a single ring. Any redesign should definitely take colorblindess into account.

Yup,  Upgrading LabVIEW versions takes a day.

The "Process" today is:

• Install from media
• Configure the new LabVIEW.ini
• install tookits (OpenG, Deploy, VIPM, TSVNtk.....)
• Mass Compile all them......
• Fix palatte views... and import and mass compile User.lib\ for here.....
• Sync glyphs on the icon editor (If the link works......)
• Add VIT's
• Add Project Templates
• Mass compileVIt's and Templates
• fix "Metadata.xml"...

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Yup, about a day of watching paint dry...........mass compiling, ignoring warnings etc......

"MyLabVIEW" would find all of those customizations and import them to the new version!

Title basically says it all but I'll elaborate.  With increasing monitor resolution, a 16x16 glyph on a listbox doesn't work very well.  On a 4K monitor this is awful tiny.  This idea is to support larger glyphs in Listboxes, Multi-column Listboxes, and Trees.  Glyphs are used in several places but on favorite of mine is to have item selection with checkboxes, example here.  Allowing for these glyphs to grow with the row height would make them appear more cohesive.  There is a thread discussing this topic, and a work around involving an array of picture rings that is placed over the listbox control.  Here is a demo from that thread:

This work around is fine for simple things but doesn't scale well, and doesn't support trees easily.  I for instance want to have two trees, where a user can drag and drop from one to the other with the larger glyphs coming along with the drop.  Having to handle where the user dropped, and then dynamically building the glyphs to overlay on top of the tree, with indentation, and hiding when a tree's leaf is closed is a major pain.  Please NI add a feature allowing for larger glyphs, and I would be so happy.