LabVIEW Idea Exchange

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One of the major obstacles to LabVIEW adoption is the difficult learning curve (perhaps it’s easier than learning a text-based programming language, but still). A simple reevaluation of whether certain options are in the most logical place might help make it easier for first-time users.

The two that caught me up the most when I was first using LabVIEW:

I expected to find the Tools Palette under Tools not under View. This tripped me up a number of times, saying, “Where on earth is the Tools Palette!?” Over the last several years I have observed a number of new users have the same difficulty. If the first place the average user looks for something is not where it is, then it is either in the wrong place or perhaps something is poorly named. The things under Tools may be better thought of as “Utilities” or something so I wouldn't keep looking for the Tools Palette there.
I expected to be able to click View>>Block Diagram to view the block diagram, not Window>>Show Block Diagram. Again, you watch someone who is new to LabVIEW poking around trying to navigate and I guarantee they’ll click View before thinking to look for it under Window.

The more I use LabVIEW, the more I find things that just seem to be in weird places. I know this may seem silly, but I think it would be worthwhile to do some new usability studies on things like this.

Auto-label items in a cluster

When adding a control as a cluster constant it's important to see what's the controls name in order to use the constant correcty.

As you can see on the right side of the image there's how a control will be added when you drag&drop it into the block diagram.

To show every label it's quite a lot of work to click on each single item (it's hard enough to hit the control correctly!) open the contect menu and select "Description" to show up.

It'd be a great relief, if you can simply select "Show all labels" to perform the same operation with 3 but 20 clicks.

Also there should be a function to automatically select if the text should be upper, lower, left or right to the constant.

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Bulk binding Variables to OPC Client

The current way to bind many shared variables to an OPC client, is through browsing a tree and selecting.

This is very time consuming when you have hundrends or thousands of tags to bind. Specialy if the all the tags are not in the same path.

A better way, is to bind the variables, by simple text.

Example: We will insert the following text

A1M01Z1:value

A2M01Z1:value

A3M01Z1:value

and LabVIEW will automatically create 3 variables, bounding to those addresses (with the same name, prefered). Many OPC Servers supports this type of address.

Note that the true path of A1M01Z1 could be something very big, like:

My Computer\OPC ABB.lvlib\_OPC1\[Control Structure]\Root\NETWORK 1\Nodecm3\Extended Process Objects\MB300 AI\A1M01Z1\VALUE

This way you can add thousands of items in minutes. It is quite easy for the R&D team to implement and will help many professional engineers.

Most probably, this idea will not accept many kudos, but i think R&D must consider to implement this.

(this was discussed with NI technical suport, Reference#3279019)

Thank you all, for reading

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I wish there was a simple check box or rotation option for the Y-Axis name label on charts/graphs rather than having to do it programmatically.

Here is what I mean:

I emailed tech support and they confirmed there is no direct way but sent me a workaround which I've attached for reference.

Regards

Mitch

A value change for the autoscale setting of a graph / chart scale is currently not registered. It can only be detected by polling for the scalefit value. The range of detectable events on charts and graphs is currently incomplete. The scale range change event and the autoscale range change event trigger at the same time in unpredictable order. This makes it hard to detect whether a user manually adjusted scale minimum and maximum or adjusted the autoscale settings value in the scale attribute. Different user actions all trigger a scale range change event without any way to discriminate the cause of this event.

Type Casting Strictly Typed VIs

Allow type casting between Strictly Typed VI References

Why:

The asynchronous methods require strictly typed VIs. Strictly typed VIs depend on the connector pane and terminal wiring type (Required, Recommended, Optional). Depending on your development environment and configuration options (Front Panel > Connector pane terminals default to required), newly connected terminals may be Required -or- Recommended.

Opening a VI reference or calling an async method with the wrong terminal wiring type will result in Error 1057: Type mismatch.

To work around the connector pane variance, we need to type cast check every connector pane terminal variance in order to call the proper async method without getting the Type Mismatch error.

The amount of unnecessary complexity to call and collect a thread is infuriating. There is already enough complexity when it comes to spawning a new threads; between the conditional options (Non-Reentrant, Reentrant, Async Forget, Async Collect), VI type specifier (Generic, Strict), Connector Pane Type (Pattern, Rotation), Terminal Wiring Types (Required, Recommended, Optional), etc. Threading in LabVIEW needs improvement.

Idea:

To better support Asynchronous calls, we need the ability type cast the required strictly typed VIs to:

1. Add an option to Start Asynchronous Call and Wait on Asynchronous Call methods to ignore the VI terminal wiring type flags:

Required (0x21000), Recommended (0x20800), Optional (0x20000)

2. Support type casting VIs To More Generic Type and To More Specific Type to avoid the error 1057 Type Mismatch all together

Regards,

A LabVIEW Enthusiast

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File Path Control browse options

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error source includes case name

free label format

How often do you find the need to orginize data into a table format while documenting your vi? I for one, could & would use it all the time! Creating a resizable table free label we all use in word & excel seems like a simple task and would aid in organizing and documenting data into a more readable format. A ctrl+double-click or shift+double-click could serve as an easy access method, tab through the contents, and resize rows and colulmns vis a cursor change while hovering at the specific borders. Free Label, New type, table format, organize data, rows, columns.

I sometimes need to add (paste) text documentation to the block diagram. This often results in a single line of text that can stretch, as a single line, for what seems like miles off to the right of the text-block insertion point. I then need to make multiple drag-edge/shift-block/repeat adjustments to beat the text block down to something that will fit on the screen. It would be nice to instead be able to select the text block and either specify a width or else say to make it the same width as something else on the block diagram.

Scroll bars in text blocks would be nice too, as long as I am wishing.

How to Spread "Tribal Knowledge"

In response to another post, Darren suggested someone start a new topic about how to more effectively spread information about new or esoteric features (sometimes referred to as "tribal knowledge").

One idea is to have a database of these gems and display one at random during the splash screen. So, while we are waiting for LabVIEW to start, we can learn a potentially useful "trick", if we care to.

Example: "Control-click on some primitives will reverse the order of the inputs. By also holding Shift, any inversions will follow the connections."

(Note: the second have of this example is not actually implemented yet.)

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Two more suggestions

There has also been a need for rising edge and falling edge triggers for boolean values instead of having to manually code this in every time. I know this would take extra memory space but could be turned on or off maybe in the control settings dialog.

I also have to manually code in time delay functions because everything I do is in loops with parallel code. The timers can't execute properly this way and would be nice to be able to use the built-in timing functions instead of hand-coding.

I find the new Channel wires very useful things! However, I really miss one type/variation which would make a real many-to-many lossless message sending possible, but also with total control over where the msgs end up in case of multiple readers! Imagine that we have a Channel wire which can be branched, and you can also specify a "destination label" (could be a number, or string, etc.) at the Write nodes. This new Channel type would allow multiple Write and Read nodes. At the Read nodes, we could also specify the "destination label", so ONLY those Reader nodes would get the actual message which are subscribed for that particular "label".

I can program this functionality, but it would be great to have such features in a single Channel wire...

What do you think? Is this a good idea or you see some caveats/downsides of such Channel?

Edit code during execution

It would be great to have possibility to change/edit the code when a VI is running in "Suspend when called mode".

This would be a code developer ultimate dream when you are into development of new code or just fault finding in old code.

During development or fault finding when/if you are using "suspend when called"-functionallity for a sub VI in your code.

I mean when the sub VI is "paused" and waiting for you to press the "run" button, right there, possibility to edit the code for that VI and run it ones, change the code (perhraps changing some timing or changing a formula of an calculation or both or change execution order for some settings of the DUT etc etc) a little bit and run it again, tweak it a little bit more and run it again... AND THEN exit the sub VI (with "suspend when called") and CONTINUE with the rest of the CODE like nothing have changed!

A kind of possibility to change the code during execution, just for VI/s that you have chosen "suspend when called" for.

What a functionality when you are into fault finding and testing out of new developed code! ! ! !

I think that this functionallity would make a big difference between text-based coding and using LabVIEW in matter of how easy development or fault finding can be done.

There doesn't appear to be any proper place for posting Data Dashboard product ideas, so I'll leave this here and it can be moved if necessary.

Data dashboard is a great application that makes portable and continuously monitoring of remote systems more easily accessible. However, Data Dashboard on Windows platforms must be running in the foreground to display shared variables. It would be convenient if Data Dashboard could pin live tiles to the start menu, while periodically poling for variable updates. In this way users would no longer need to constantly launch or switch to the Data Dashboard app.

The nature of Data Dashboard seems to mesh well with the "information at a glance" mantra of the live tile interface. Seems like a missed opportunity to me and I would love to see this implemented in the future.

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FPGA code allows I/O references to be used so that code can be re-used/abstracted, like this

This could/should be extended to cRIO C-modules so that code can be re-used on multiple modules. This would require the 'cRIO Device' property node to return an array of I/O Refnums that could then be passed to subVIs or other modular code.

For example, if I have code for an analogue input module (say, NI 9205) which filters and processes the data, and I wish to re-use that code in multiple experiments I have to manually change the module name in each IO constant or node (Mod1/AI0 to Mod3/AI0) if the module moves or I need more than one of the same type.

Conversely, if the cRIO Device property could provide the I/O references, the code could accept a cRIO Device constant and the reusable code extract the I/O references. The code would then adapt from Mod1/AI0 to Mod3/AI0 as the cRIO device was changed from Mod1 to Mod3.

It would be added to these properties.

Thanks,

Richard.

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LabVIEW Idea Exchange

Shared memory between RT and FPGA

Consider reevaluating the organization of menu options.

Auto-label items in a cluster

Always display the full value of a control or indicator in the help window

Bulk binding Variables to OPC Client

Interface based messaging for Actors.

Rotate Y-Axis Name on Charts/Graphs

Events for all Graph / Chart property value changes

Type Casting Strictly Typed VIs

Allow type casting between Strictly Typed VI References

Why:

Idea:

File Path Control browse options

Confirmation dialogue when changing type definition to control

error source includes case name

free label format

Add "Resize Objects" option to to block diagram toolbar

How to Spread "Tribal Knowledge"

Rising Edge / Falling Edge and timer delays

New Message Channel wire type with option to specify destination

Edit code during execution

Live Tile Functionality for Data Dashboard on Windows 8 and Windows Phone 8

To improve FPGA code re-use, add support for physical I/O information in the cRIO module property node