LabVIEW Idea Exchange

Right-clicking a subVI and selecting "Find all instances" is extremely useful. However there is currently no way to filter the results by a particular input or output being wired in the caller VI.

My proposal is: It would be great to be able to filter by a particular input or output, or a particular combination of inputs and outputs, being wired in the caller (i.e. being used by the caller) when using "Find all instances". There are multiple ways of exposing such a filter to the user, so I won't attempt to mock up a design here.

Background

Recently I refactored parts of a medium-size LabVIEW project that I was working with for the first time. As part of the refactoring I wanted to remove an output of an FGV-type subVI with multiple inputs and outputs, because I suspected that that output was unused by any of the callers. Using "Find all instances" I found around 60 instances where this subVI was called. I had to Ctrl + G through the results list and check that the output I wanted to remove was not used in any of the callers. This would have been simpler if I could have set a filter condition to this effect, as the search would have returned only those callers that were using that output. In this case, the search would have returned 0 results, thus confirming that the output was unused.

Side-note: You are probably thinking "You could have disconnected the output terminal from the connector pane, and used the Error List (broken run arrows) to find the broken callers." That's what I intended to do before I realised that virtually all of the caller VIs were dynamically called VIs. Therefore those VIs being broken wouldn't have broken the main VI of the app. I put those dynamically called VIs into the disabled case of a Diagram Disable Structure such that they were loaded in memory and "Find all instances" would search inside them.

Thanks

Background

This idea is derived from the following idea: Front panel controls and indicators should be genuine after being replaced with control or indicator of different style . Please read that thread for background.

Problem
There are three ways to replace front panel controls and indicators:
1. Right-click the control or indicator, select Replace, then select the select the object to replace with.

2. Select the control or indicator, press Ctrl + Space to bring up QuickDrop, search for the object to replace with, then press Ctrl + P.

3. Select a control or indicator and press Ctrl + X. The control will disappear from the front panel. Select another control or indicator. Press Ctrl + V. The second control is replaced by the first control.

The first two methods preserve some of the look and feel of the original object. For example, when replacing a Modern-style string control with a classic-style string control, the end result is a control that looks like a mixture between the two styles. This may or may not be desired behaviour.

The third method does not preserve any of the attributes of the object that was replaced. The end result is a control that looks exactly like the control that was selected when Ctrl + X was pressed.

Both behaviours can be desireable in different situations, and it's good that there are ways to achieve both. However, the third method is not easily discoverable.

Proposed solution

A more intuitive and discoverable solution could be: After right clicking an object, selecting Replace, and selecting the object to replace with, a two button dialogue message could popup. The message could ask something like "Preserve attributes?" The buttons' Boolean text could be "Yes" and "No".

Ideally the same popup would appear when using the QuickDrop Ctrl + Space, Ctrl + P method.

This would:

1. Enable the user to select either to preserve attributes or not, depending on their intention at that particular moment. (the same user may prefer either behaviour at different times)

2. Increase awareness that two behaviours are available

Thanks

I wish the Formula VIs supported conditional logic.

More broadly, make the Formula Node and the Formula Parse and Eval VIs have the same syntax and capability.

from LV help:

Differences between the Parser in the Mathematics VIs and the Formula Node
The parser in the Mathematics VIs supports all elements that Formula Nodes support with the following exceptions:

Variables—Only a, a0, ..., a9, ... z, z0, ..., z9, are valid.
Logical, conditional, inequality, equality—?:,, &&, !=, ==, <, >, <=, and >= are not valid.
Functions—atan2, max, min, mod, pow, rem, and sizeOfDim are not valid. You can use these functions in a Formula Node or use their corresponding LabVIEW functions.