LabVIEW Idea Exchange

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ERROR with Project Code

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I would like to be able to create executables that don’t require the runtime engine in LabVIEW. Perhaps a palette of basic functions that can compiled without the runtime engine and an option in the application builder for that. I routinely get executables from programmers that don’t require a runtime installation. I just put it on my desktop and it runs. It would be nice that if I get a request, I could create, build, and send them an exe in an email without worrying about runtime engine versions, transferring large installer files to them, etc.

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Shrink-Wrap Structures

Often, when modifying code, I need to reduce the size of a structure due to removing code. If I have a nested structure system (e.g. event structure in a case statement in a loop), this can get very tedious. It would be nice to have a "shrinkwrap structure" functionality on the right-click menu as a counterpoint to the autogrow. This would be an action that would reduce the structure size to something a bit bigger than the largest contents. An option to set how much extra space to include would be nice.

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In general I would like to see LabVIEW more in line with the OS GUI standards. We have dialog controls and colors, however they are not set up to be the default choice - and we lack other GUI elements like status bars, notify icons, child windows etc. etc. A large part of LV-programmers' time is spent on ways to get LV to mimic what users will recognise and therefor intuitively understand.

In this case I simply miss the "sort glyph" that indicates that a table or listbox is sorted based on a given column and in which direction.

I imagine we could show or hide this and set its direction with a property node...It would not handle the sorting (although that would have been neat as well - if you had an in-built sorting that just needed to know a few parameters about the column data to do the job)...

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LabVIEW Codewars

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The Wire Multiple Objects Together QuickDrop tool (Ctrl + W) is extremely useful. However, at the moment it cannot wire a block diagram constant to multiple destinations. It would be useful if it could.

Real-world example

The other day I found myself writing the following code.

1 (edited).png

I tried using Ctrl + W to wire the timestamp constant to each of the timestamp global variables. Currently the tool wires the constant to the first global variable only (leaving all other global variables unwired). Therefore I had to manually wire the constant to each of the other global variables, which is a tedious, manual operation.

Side-note: Global variables are used because they are computationally efficient (they can be read and written to very quickly). We needed code that ran in a tight loop (up to 1,200 times per second). The VI above performs the one-off initialisation of the global variables, before they start being read/written to in the loop.

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Restore High Contrast Icons

For those of you who haven't signed up yet, you should go and have a look at the Next Generation LabVIEW Features Technology Preview (a mouthful, but in short, it is a UI and Development Environment demonstration version of what NI is cooking up for future versions of LabVIEW). There are some cool things and some downright awful ones.

One of them has been sneaking its ugly neck in LabVIEW 2016: reduced contrast. I am (my eyes) getting tired of it. A few examples of the changes introduced in 2016 are shown below:

2015:

2016:

Considering that the trend is for displays to not increase that much in size but increase in resolution, we have now to factors to fight against: the reduction in size AND the reduction in contrast. I won't mention laptop displays going in economy mode and reducing their luminosity, but the point is that it is making LabVIEW even more difficult and unengaging to use. Way to go to loose any chance to attract new users, and run the risk to loose old timers due to added eye strain.

Put simply: Restore high contrast icons and please, do not go ahead with the washed out IDE and UI objects showcased in Tech Preview.

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This is one of those existing "features" that I cannot understand, no matter how long I ponder why it is implemented this way. (WHY!!!?????). Somebody must have consciously programmed this behavior in the early days of LabVIEW, but I simply don't get it. 😉

Try the following yourself and you'll see what I mean: 😄

Create a structure (For loop, while loop, case, event, etc) with a few tunnels.
Select one of the tunnels, and, using the arrow keys move it towards one of the structure corners.
Observe: As soon as we move within a few pixels of the corner, the tunnel jumps to the corner and can no longer be moved with the arrow keys alone.
To move it away again, we need to grab it with the cursor using the mouse and move it at least a few pixels away from the corner or use "shift-arrow" to move it by a bigger step. THis should not be necessary.

Idea: There should be no such stickyness!

IF a tunnel is moved towards a structure corner with the arrow keys, it should simply stop moving at the corner and we should be able to move it away again by pressing the opposite arrow key (or the arrow key following around the corner by 90 degrees)

Abort All VIs in Project

When improperly stopping a project that has launched asynchronous vis set to fire and forget, you end up with classes and libraries that are locked.

There seems to be no way of unlocking them other than to close the project. There is an idea to abort called VIs when the parent stops but from the lack of kudos and by reading the comments it doesn't seem like a good one.

I know about and use the Abort.vi but it does not work in this case. The dropdown is empty:

Not even the LabVIEW Task Manager can help.

My idea is to have a button that does whatever closing the project does when it unlocks the class or library. Maybe this means it transparently closes the project and opens it again in the state it was in when the button was pressed. I don't know.

I know there are some similar ideas but as far as I can tell this is not a duplicate.

I really, really don't like this behavior:

Whenever you use the KeyFocus property, or simply the tab key on a running VI, whatever control has key focus gets that ugly black border around it. Can we just eliminate this feature, or at the very least, have the ability to disable it? The border doesn't appear on System-style front panel controls, but it does for anything else. I've written all sorts of hacks over the years (the latest being in Quick Drop) where I have to figure out a way to hide that ugly border when a control gets key focus.

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Clear Errors Polymorphic Inputs

In 2014 the Clear errors VI now accepts a single error which can be cleared. This is nice but when I heard NI was implementing their own filter errors, I assumed they would do it in a similar way to the OpenG Filter Errors VI, which accepts a scalar, or an array of error codes to filter.

In addition to this I think it would be helpful if this Clear Errors also accepts the error data type for errors to filter, or an array of errors to filter. That way the Error Ring can be used to help readability of the block diagram showing the error that is being cleared.

You might not know this, but if you drop a String constant on the block diagram (or create one from a terminal), you can use shift+enter to define the bounds as you type.

You start typing the first line. As you type, the constant gets larger. Hit shift+enter. Now as you continue typing, the string constant grows vertically only, using word wrap at the bounds of the string constant. Now hit shift+enter again. The string stops growing vertically and the vertical scrollbar appears on the constant.

This behavior is very nice for creating string constants inside of structure nodes without having to create the item, then resize it, then come back and start typing your text.

Wouldn't it be nice if the same shift+enter trick worked when typing free labels? I think so.

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Current behavior:

When saving a new .lvlib inside a .lvproj the save file dialog brings me to the last saved location which is often a different repo.

Desired behavior:

When saving a new .lvlib inside a .lvproj bring me to the root directory where the .lvproj is saved and not the last saved file location. i.e. implement the same behavior as when saving a VI inside a library or a class. This would solve the issue of VIs accidentally being miss-saved outside of the project folder and then getting lost.

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I often use LabVIEW projects. Projects may contain libraries, classes, etc.

Changing the contents of any component (such as a library) within a project causes the project file to change -- even though the project definition itself shouldn't have actually changed. For instance, if this is my project:

and I delete a VI that is inside an .lvlib, the project file itself claims to have had an attribute change:

In theory, this top-level project change isn't necessary -- since the project should just reference the library, and only the library should reflect a change.

These unnecessary file changes make it trickier to deal with source control, merging code, tracking changes, etc, along with adding one more file that you get prompted to save every time you close a project.

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I find myself with my fingers on the shift and arrow keys a significant amount of time while trying to make my code more readable. Invariable I switch between the arrow keys and the mouse in the process of straitening and aligning. Why not use the arrow keys for both alignment and object movement?

I'll let the following illustrations explain what I mean. I'm only showing a limited subset of the possible combinations, most of the time you can go in all 4 directions.

Note that during a "combo" (the control key isn't released) the original order of the objects will need to be remembered, so that when they are all aligned into a corner, subsequent combinations will maintain the order.

Building on that, more advanced functions are below:

For the diagonal, once they are aligned to a corner, the diagonal can go in any of the 4 directions.

As you can see, this will emmensely increase productivity and general neatness of code. And perhaps more importantly, it will bring us even closer to our ultimate goal: making LabVIEW programming even more like playing a video game.

Currently the only image formats still commonly used today that can be imported into custom controls are non-scalable bitmap formats. The only supported vector formats that I know of are WMF and EMF, which is almost never used anymore to my knowledge. Even worse, it doesn't support features now expected in vector formats, such as gradients and alpha transparency. So if you're developing a custom control, you have to either use an antiquated format or a bitmap format.

LabVIEW 2011 introduced the new Silver control set, which to my knowledge still use LabVIEW's internal PICC format, which is completely undocumented. Rather than adding gradients and other new features to this private, undocumented format and using that, it would have made a lot more sense to add support for SVG, a modern, full-featured vector format that is commonly used, and used that for the Silver controls.

Not only are the two vector formats LabVIEW supports ancient formats, but their inclusion almost seems like an afterthought. Imported WMF and EMF images aren't anti-aliased like the Silver controls. Because of this, it's practically impossible to create any modern-looking custom controls that look good scaled unless you don't want any diagonal lines or curves, in which case you might as well just use a bitmap.

Sorry for the abrupt end!

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LabVIEW Idea Exchange

ERROR with Project Code

Build executibles that don't require a runtime engine

Shrink-Wrap Structures

Sort arrow in column headers of tables and listboxes

Always break Unbundle or Bundle by Name when the item in the cluster is removed.

Concatenate primitive with an option of 'concatenate to new line'.

LabVIEW Codewars

Improvement to the QuickDrop Ctrl+W tool: Wire constant to multiple destinations

Restore High Contrast Icons

Make structure corners non-magnetic for tunnels.

"Flattened String To Variant" node should return "rest of the binary string"

Abort All VIs in Project

Key Focus Surrounding Border - Let's Get Rid of It!

Clear Errors Polymorphic Inputs

Shift-Enter should define word wrap bounds on Free Labels

Default to .lvproj folder root when saving new .lvlibs in a project

Changes to sub-components of components of projects shouldn't force change to project file itself

Desktop Execution Trace Toolkit should be able to present data graphically

Use arrow keys for object alignment

Add support for SVG images in custom controls