LabVIEW Idea Exchange

Excel displays the number of selected cells.

VS Code displays the number of selected characters.

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

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

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

Open the VI Properties dialog when the Control key is depressed and the VI's icon in the upper right is double-clicked.

Right-clicking the icon shows a pop-up menu with VI Properties, Edit Icon..., and Find All Instances. Double clicking it opens the icon editor.

My request is for NI to review and develop the ability to select where (IP specifically) a NSV will deploy on a system (eg. PC) containing multiple networks.

After searching through various forums and issues, I understand that currently we can only choose LabView software's global default adapter via unusual Windows methods. What if other projects do need to use the primary NIC ? or what if in one project I need some NSV to go to primary NIC and some to use the secondary NIC ? As various hacks and workarounds did not fulfill my requirements I opened a request for technical support. After review, the case (#03609821) concluded that this was not possible and suggested I post here to see if others also would find this useful to boost development priority.

My example scenario is this. My company develops specialized motion products (mainly automotive transmissions for heavy duty and defense applications). We primarily use NI in our dyno and own a few NI hardware systems: cRIO, cDAQ, PXI.

I work in the dyno room here and am trying to set up a cRIO as a datalogger and RT OS to primarily measure analog and CANbus signals and thereby control testing.

The test fixture is operated on a PC with two network cards. One private LAN to talk to the cRIO to stream data and control. The network shared variables keep track of various statuses. The other network card is on the company LAN primarily so we can transfer data and share fixture status. The secondary purpose of being on the company LAN is that we have 6 configurable dyno motors (usually used in pairs) in the room that run on a shared master controller (non-NI). Currently that is done via PC RS232 to the cRIO, but we’re planning eventually to transition that to a more open ethernet architecture. NSVs would be ideal for sharing each dynos’ status as the serial is limited in 1-1 connection and bandwidth.

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! 🙂

Problem: When developing or inheriting a large code base it is helpful to know which VI has Automatic Error Handling (AEH) enabled and which has it disabled. Currently, the quickest way to get this information is to bring up the VI Properties window (pressing Ctrl + I) and navigate to the Execution page. This is tedious when done on large numbers of VIs.

Solution: LabVIEW should display whether AEH is enabled or disabled on the Block Diagram. For example, a grey triangle located in the bottom-right corner of the block diagram window could indicate that AEH is disabled, and an "error green" triangle could indicate that AEH is enabled, as seen in the screenshots below. This display method is just a suggestion - professional UX designers may well find a better method. I would be happy with any indication method that I could at a glance see on the block diagram window.

Idea expansion:

• Executing a single left click on the triangle (or any other indication method) would toggle the setting to its other value. For example, a single left click on the grey triangle would toggle the AEH to enabled and the triangle would become green.

Currently, the TDMS File api does not offer a way to get the TDMS file size.

Our use case is that we'd like to limit the size of the TDMS files and span them accross multiple individual files (and I've posted an idea suggestion for adding that as a native feature, too).  To do this, we need to be able to monitor the TDMS file size, so that we can save/close the current file and then create the next file in the span for continued use (until we hit the size limit again).

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.

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