LabVIEW Idea Exchange

Top Authors

User

Kudos

Post an idea

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:

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.

In Windows File Explorer, Alt + double-click on a file or folder pops up that item's Properties page. It is equivalent to right-clicking and selecting Properties. This is a useful, time-saving keyboard shortcut/gesture.

The same keyboard shortcut/gesture should work in the Project Explorer. Executing the shortcut would pop up the Properties window of whichever item was double-clicked on.

The shortcut should work for lvclass and lvlib items, VIs, and CTLs (and possibly other item types too). For lvclass and lvlib items the Properties window would appear. For VIs and CTLs the VI Properties window would appear (equivalent to Ctrl + I).

Screenshot 1

1 (edited).png

Screenshot 2

2 (edited).png

Thanks

View All (4)

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.

A malleable VI on a block diagram can be converted from an Instance VI to a Standard VI, which I've found useful to aid debugging. Unfortunately this modifies the calling code and requires the changes to be reverted to restore the original malleable VI.

This idea is to provide an additional right-click option for malleable VIs - View Instance VI. This would open the instance VI in memory, and allow read-only viewing of the block diagram.

This is useful when examining how the Type Specialization Structure cases are being evaluated given the currently wired inputs to a malleable VI. It also offers ability to quickly view the instance VI data types, helping determine which malleable input wires are *actually* broken. In the example below LabVIEW shows all of the inputs to Stall Data Flow.vim as broken, though viewing the instance VI shows only one input is actually broken.

When the Instance VI is opened for viewing, it wouldn't offer any runtime debugging, but means no changes need to be made to the calling VI when performing static code analysis at edit time.

The ability to view instance VIs already exists in LabVIEW through VI scripting (see example below), but would be nicer to have quick access to it when right-clicking a malleable VI.

View All (2)

When selecting a set of object that are from the same class, I'd like to be able to change some of their main properties at once from the right click menu.

For instance, when selecting a bunch of numeric controls, being able to change all their representation to U8 without having to open the property page (which sometimes take some time to load.

This could be done either via the r.click option, or even via the properties page that would show that it is for more than 1 item. Via the property page

From the property page, it would be nice to have the possibility to easily change their label and caption independently and faster (using tab) than to have to change them manually by double clinking on the labels, hoping to not click on the side of the box.

This happens to me all the time:

This could be a viable option in my opinion (Please excuse my poor designer capabilities):

- Vincent.

Add search results preview

At the moment, if I want to review my search results, I'm required to double click each item. This opens the diagram (usually) and the front panel. I then have to close them, or I might end up with dozens of open windows.

Of course I could use CTRL+G, but I'd still need to clean up the opened windows.

Another slowdown is that the highlighted item can popup anywhere on my screen(s). This "gaze time" adds up if you need to browse through dozens of results.

It would save me tons of time if the search results window had a preview of the result:

Search Results Preview.png

The found item should be in the center, preferably highlighted in some way.

It would allow me to give the listbox key focus, and use up\down to browse through all items very quickly, without any need to clean up!

Some additional thoughts:

Spoiler

I'd be OK with an image, it doesn't need to be like the DD preview in LV2020. I'd prefer to see an image even if the diagram is already opened...

Scrollbars might be nice?

The proposed image is just a quick sketch. It would need a splitter bar, and perhaps the preview should be optional?

I'd be OK with an image, it doesn't need to be like the DD preview in LV2020. I'd prefer to see an image even if the diagram is already opened... Scrollbars might be nice? The proposed image is just a quick sketch. It would need a splitter bar, and perhaps the preview should be optional?

Background

The DAQmx apis allow streaming measurements to TDMS. This supports spanning multiple files (by setting the max file size for individual files in the span set), which is very useful.

We need a similar feature for files we're writing to directly (i.e. not using DAQmx) with the TDMS File functions in LabVIEW.

Note: The main reason we wanting this feature, right now, is that our files are growing quite large and when we run the TDMS Defragement function, we get out of memory errors in RT on cRIO (e.g. if we have 512MB RAM on our cRIO and the TDMS file is around the same size).

Alternatives

We're thinking to do this ourselves, however the TDMS file api does not support checking the file size from a TDMS file reference (and that's a great idea, too).

I'm not totally sure how this would be added to the TDMS file api -- maybe there could be a "TDMS Advanced Spanning" palette with options for configuring and interacting with TDMS spanning.

View All (1)

Default cases should be pure!

When wiring a numeric or enum to a case structure, we get the existing case as 1 (or the second enum item) and a default case also containing "0" (or the first enum item). Many times we need a special case only for one item and everything else should be in the default case.

Case structures are happy with just the word "default" in the second case. The unfortunate automatic existence of one other specific selector value in the default case hampers workflow. For example in the vast majority of my coding, I want the special case to be zero and the other case to be the default.

After wiring the selector, I could just enter the desired value in the non-default case that is showing, except if that desired value also exists (for no good obvious reason!) in the default case. If this happens, I need to edit the default case. That should not be necessary.

Suggestion: Whenever a default case is automatically created, it should not contain any extra specific selector values.

View All (1)

Increase Icon Resolution

Cluster Support for "Add Array Elements"

Oftentimes, rearranging or reordering a Bundle by Name or Unbundle by Name for clusters can yield fewer wire crossings. For instance, below, wire crossings can be eliminated by moving "Timestamp" to the bottom of the Unbundle and "Value" second to bottom on the Bundle:

The current process of moving one of these elements:

Increase the size of the node using the Resize Handles on top or bottom, or select "Add Element" from Context Menu (and hope you remember if it adds and element below or above the cell you are clicking on!
Wire to the new element, and deal with deleting the old wire
Delete the old accessor using either Resize Handles or "Remove Element" from Context Menu

This can be laborious. Instead, I would like a way to quickly reorder the elements. I have a few ideas how this can be accomplished:

Context menu with a "Move Up" and "Move Down" action (not so elegant)
A pop-up window that allowed rearrangement (think "Rearrange Cases..." on Event Handler or Case Structures)
A native drag-and drop on the Unbundle/Bundle node itself. This could be realized given the current "click regions" on the node (hover your mouse and sweep horizontally over one of these nodes... you'll discover the 4 regions). The two "Arrow" regions currently move the node on the BD, but they could be used to rearrange the node (see below)

Just throwing out some ideas, I'm not stuck on any one. So, the idea you are voting for: Provide a User Interface for quickly rearranging elements on a Bundle or Unbundle by Name.

View All (7)

The help page, that is supposed to provide a starting point for the developers on creating readable, high quality code in LabVIEW seems to be unchanged for quite some time: LabVIEW Style Checklist - NI.

At different workplaces (including NI) and different teams I have seen different implementations of such guides, many of which included extra "rules".

One such example is the file naming convention:

Using spaces for separating words.
Using Libraries to namespace VIs instead of including the noun in every related VI.

These are the most prominent examples I can come up with from the top of my head, but I'm sure that there are more.

I'm curious if an updated version exists somewhere that could be used to replace the above refenced help page?

If there is not, then I think could we collect some ideas here for updating this document.

View All (2)

It seems that if you have a VI (or function) inside of a disabled frame of a Diagram Disable Structure or Conditional Disable Structure then the Find and Find All Instances features in LabVIEW will not report them. I'm OK if this is the default behavior, but maybe the Find dialog should have an option/checkbox to search inside of Disabled Structures.

Note: This is really important for cross-platform and embedded target development where there's lots of use of Disabled Structures.

align "rotate 1D array"

View All (2)

Create a public bug-tracking dashboard

Almost every widely-used software framework, ecosystem, IDE, ... has a public bug-tracking dashboard where bugs can be:

reported
monitored
voted
...

Jira or Mantis are quite common solution.

As a NI user, the current situation it's really frustrating: even for bugs originally reported by me, the ticket is created by a NI engineer.

And so I don't know what information it contains, its priority, if someone is working on it, if it has been already solved, ...

Many years ago NI was a pioneer with the community, but now is ages behind everyone else.

View All (1)

Probing a typedef results in a vertical list showing all the fields in the cluster. Creating the typedef cluster often involves organizing the fields in a particular layout, setting units etc. It seems like probing the data and displaying it in the same format makes more sense.

For instance, I have a cluster of camera information set up as a strict typedef:

When I probe a wire of this information I get:

This cluster isn't too big so getting to all the information doesn't require a lot of searching and scrolling, but that can be an issue. What's more of a pain is that the default unit for angles is rad and I cannot mentally convert them quickly so I end up having to double-click each 'rad' label in the probe window and change them to 'deg' so I can confirm the data is what I expect.

I know I can create a custom probe to display the typedef, but having to constantly create custom probes for each cluster is a bit of a burden.

Am I missing something? Is there a good reason to NOT display the probe using the typedef?

View All (4)

View All (2)

View All (3)

LabVIEW Idea Exchange

Enable "Replace with..." when dependency not found in project.

New keyboard shortcut: Alt + double-click to open Properties in Project Explorer (similar to Windows File Explorer gesture)

Drill-down debug capabilities for class overrides

Malleable VI - Option to view Instance VI

Bulk change common properties of object from the same class (Like numeric representation)

Add search results preview

Need "TDMS Advanced Spanning" api -- an easy way to span TDMS files and limit individual file size

Default cases should be pure!

Add boolean text specifier in format into string

Increase Icon Resolution

Cluster Support for "Add Array Elements"

Rearrange Unbundle and Bundle By Name

Overhaul the LabVIEW Style Checklist inside LabVIEW help

Option for Find (and Find all Instances) to Search inside of Disabled Structures

align "rotate 1D array"

Create a public bug-tracking dashboard

Back Propagation of 'Create User Event' Datatype

Probe of a typedef cluster should use the typedef for display

Case Insensitive Comparison Mode for String Equality Comparison

Allow Web Based Help for lvclass, lvlib, XControl ,etc.