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It would be a good idea to leave the Control's appearance to be more flexible for modifications. For example, at the moment we can only modify the size and colors, it would be good to be able to modify the shape of them. This can enhance the experience to customize the Controls of LabVIEW. 

 

It would be a good option to be able to change the shape and color of Controls from within LabVIEW, not having to use third-party software to achieve this. 

I think LabVIEW should have something like the dialog VIs that acts as a popup where the vi displays a message to the user but doesn't hang up code and wait on the user to press a button.

 

An example case is a state machine that has error checking built in errors out.  Instead of creating a more complex error handling scheme to display the state machine errored out and heres why then shutdown the state machine, you could instead drop this async popup in the state with the message to display the error occurred then have the state machine shutdown like normal.  This way, the user knows "the state machine shutdown for X reason" while the state machine also goes into a safe state.  

 

I think the async popup is easier to trace since the error message is located in that section that detected the error vs having some sort of store an error string then in the shut down case read if there is an error and if so display the error once the station is already shutdown.  Additionally, you cold see where all asnyc message blocks are via dropping one in your code then right clicking and searching for all instances.  This could streamline the process to see where the fault occurred since the async message block would be in the location of the fault itself.

 

I have currently built something like this that is a reentrant VI whose input is a string and a secondary VI that launches the display message VI.  It's a bit of a work around, but I can display a message to the user while my code continues to do whatever it needs to.  

When we use diff to compare old and new VIs, currently both the FP and BD open and the FP is on top. But frequently the FP hasn't changed at all -- the API can stay the same while making substantive changes internally. So in cases where there is no FP diff, please put the diagram window in front. That would make reviews of large quantity of small changes (like replacing a commonly used subVI with a new subVI) easier to quickly review. 

Currently, when you right-click -> "Make Type Def" on a control / constant in a library VI, the new unnamed type definition is created outside

the library.

Also, it has the default control icon: raphschru_0-1665514290538.png

instead of a library control icon:       raphschru_4-1665514883384.png

 

This leads to 3 additional tasks:

1. Drag and drop the control inside the library from the project explorer.

2. Edit the control icon to make it have the library control icon (with the horizontal slider glyph).

This is annoying because you need to copy it from another library control icon.

3. Go to the library properties and make "Apply Icon To VIs".

 

Bonus bug: If your new type contains a library-private subtype, the new control magically disappears from the project explorer when you click on it.

 

In comparison, the "Create SubVI" function works perfectly inside a library, i.e. it creates a VI inside the library and with the icon banner.

I think the "Make Type Def" function should behave the same to make library development more coherent and intuitive.

If I drop down a color picker control, I can get an event on it for when a new color is selected by using the value change event.  But what if I want to know what color the user has their mouse over, before clicking on it?  Many of NI's controls change color as you select a new color.  The Graph plots for instance will update as you move the mouse around.

 

This idea is to allow color picking controls to have a new user event, which is Mouse Over Color which gets generated when the user mouses over a new color.  This way we can make applications that change the color of some UI element before the user picks the new color like NI does.

 

This can be accomplished today by recreating the color picking functionality in a new VI.  Here is one example posted that allows you to pick a color.  Using this someone could generate a User Event, or post to a global as the new color selection is being made.

I prefer having the setting "Show subVI names when dropped" ticked (found in Tools >> Options >> Block Diagram). However, this option applies only to VIs. It doesn't apply to primitive nodes such as "Search 1D Array", "Format Into String" or "Match Pattern". This is fine, as the name of the setting implies this.

 

However, because I sometimes prefer showing the names of nodes, I have to select one or multiple nodes, right-click and select "Visible Items >> Label". This is a minor inconvenience, but it'd be nice if there was another option named something like "Show node names when dropped", as seen below. When ticked, the node labels would be visible by default. Hopefully the implementation effort of this setting is low.

 

Screenshot (edited).png

 

Screenshot 2 (edited).png

 

Thanks

 

When a third party add-on expires you get a dialog asking you to activate it, but the dialog does not offer you the option to remove it instead:

 

Mads_0-1665130603004.png

 

If would be nice to be able to select add-ons in the add-on list and then click a Remove/Uninstall button (and/or right-click). The current solution is to manually fire up the package manager and uninstall it from there (the remove button could alternatively (if needed /quicker to implement) call the package manager and tell it to start the removal of the selected packages.

I wish there was a boolean text specifier for Format into String functions.

 

% followed by "?" would expect two possible strings like this. Why not?

 

boolean.png

Getting a date / time time stamp is not uncommon while developing. This Type def should have a unique icon rather than the default.

JScherer_0-1664909004026.png

JScherer_1-1664909084219.png

 

 

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.

instance-vi-1.png

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.

 

instance-vi-2.png

 

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.

 

instance-vi-3.png

The Swap Values node only supports a Boolean input on the '?' terminal.

swap-values-error-cluster.png

It should also support an error cluster input, in the same way as the Select node (pictured) and many other nodes with Boolean inputs.

When a TLS Configuration Refnum is wired to "Not a Number/Path/Refnum" it always returns true, even though the TLS Configuration Refnum has been correctly created and is valid.

 

tls-refnum.png

The idea is for "Not a Number/Path/Refnum" to handle the TLS Configuration Refnum and return false when the refnum is valid.

 

Currently, when you programmatically build an application using the "Build" VI of the App Builder API, you have no feedback (such as build details, progress percentage, warnings, errors...) and no ability to cancel while it builds.

So you have no idea how long it will take to build and cannot cancel if it takes too long.

 

It would be great to have these interactions, just like with the manual build:

raphschru_1-1664575565945.png

 

The Build VI could have 2 notifiers or user events as additional inputs:

- 1 to receive build details, progress percentage, warnings and errors

- 1 to send the Cancel command

 

These additional inputs would be optional and default to invalid refnums, which would mean "do not use the feature".

Hello LabVIEW Experts.

 

I am using LV 2017 (Not sure how it works in Recent Versions of LabVIEW). Sorry if its fixed in Recent versions.

Started this thread to share my recent learning/bug.

 

It all started like this.

 

One my Engineer was re-architecturing existing LabVIEW Application and it has 40+ States/Cases Defined- Out of which two were identical and he is not able to figure out the duplicate.

We spend sometime to resolve by sorting and finding the duplicate.

 

Later i was working on the same to figure out why cant LabVIEW Highlight the issue/restrict from adding.

 

LabVIEW does restricts User from adding identical Items when using Edit Items of Enum Properties.

 

PalanivelThiruvenkadam_0-1664173360124.png

But it allows me to add identical items when users adds using shortcut/add items.

 

During this experiment i also found that LabVIEW doesn't allow user to create (Make Type Def) if the items are identical.

The above behavior is perfect but there should be a warning why they are not able to (Make Type Def)

 

I have Few Points on this.

 

1. There should be Error Warning/Highlight  to make user to debugg where the identical cases located (helpful when more states are mapped)

2.There should the restriction in adding items at all levels (all possible options to add items)

3.There should be an warning why user cannot (Make Type Def) when there are identical items.

Hello community,

 

I would like to introduce the idea of having the selector label being able to break into multiline if the string of selections, handled by this case, is too long for the width of the case / event structure.

I work a lot with enums, either for indicating states or for named indices in arrays. If one case handles some of them and they are not subsequent, the list quick gets quite long, so I have to stretch the block diagram very wide to have them all displayed. Even more obviously this problem is to be seen with event structures, using the the same frame for a lot of events on a number of different controls.

The size of the selector label could increase downwards like the subdiagram label.

 

What do you think about this?

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.

1 (edited).png

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

Hello NI,

I am thinking of a feature that if I hold a certain key such as CTRL and then move a vi that has error in/out wire in it, it will automatically snap to the error line that gets close to it such that the feature will automatically connect the moved vi in between the error wire it is closed to. This will cut the error line and insert the error in and out of the vi that gets close to it. Thus a person will not need to do the following steps:

1) click to error line, then click to input of the error wire of the vi.
2) click to error line again, then click to output of the error wire of the vi..
3) click the unwanted wire/broken path and delete.

Regards,
Mark J.

Codewars - Achieve mastery through coding practice and developer mentorship

 

What language is missing in this list??

wiebeCARYA_0-1662972904604.png

 

Codewars for LabVIEW should be mostly community driven, but NI would have to set it up.

Currently, the Third-Party Licensing and Activation Toolkit doesn't handle PPLs. This makes creating a plugin, pay-per-component architecture difficult.  Handling licensing and activation of PPLs is needed as part of TPLAT or some other mechanism.