Connector Pane Editor

[Darin.K]

In this idea on the Exchange I suggest that NI provide a Connector Pane Editor along the lines of the current Icon Editor.  As an example I showed the simple version I have been using for quite some time now.  When I immediately missed it in LV10 I decided it was time for NI to spruce it up, do it right, and include it with LV.

As I have attached it, you can run the Top Level VI in the LLB to launch the Editor.  A dialog box will ask you for the name of the VI to edit.  This allows you to play with it before adding to the Tools menu.  If you like it and would like to add it to the tools menu, simply modify Edit Connector Pane.vi by switching the Enabled cases on the two Disable structures.  Then save the VI and put the LLB into the Project folder as usual.

Details of this process are found here:

http://decibel.ni.com/content/docs/DOC-8496

To use the tool simply click to connect the Target terminal to the current terminal.  Shift-click to grab a currently connected terminal.  Be sure to Commit when you are happy with the changes.  You can add descriptions to your controls as well.

No comments on the architecure, it started as an experiment in LV8.2 or maybe LV7.1, and like duct tape, the kluge became a bit more permanent than anticipated.  Not that the cramming the consumer into the timeout case of the producer worked that poorly.

If you like/dislike some functions I would be curious.  I don't have to care since it only has to make me happy. 

And to be clear, my idea is not to get this implemented per se, but to get NI to do something along these lines.  So in that spirit, functionality you would like to see is also interesting (in the idea thread).  Just do a simple test, take a VI with about a dozen controls and indicators and a fairly good sized front panel, wire the connector pane using the old-fashioned way, then try it with this tool.  Money-back guarantee if you are not satisfied.

[GregFreeman]

Pretty Nifty. You said the original was done in 8.2...how did you accomplish that without scripting? Just curious.

[Darin.K]

The very first version was intended to be a demo, then I discovered scripting was available, just very hard to access in earlier LV versions.  At that point it became functional and I was hooked.  I am hoping to spread the addiction and get NI to step up.

Since the original I have cleaned up the code a bit (conditional for loops help A LOT), and played with some variations.  

Using it from the Tools menu is much better than nothing.   I have tried hacks to get it more integrated with the IDE (piggyback with icon editor).  I have asked NI to let me assign a keyboard shortcut to tools like this.  And now I am asking NI to skip the middleman and just add something along these lines.

[DFGray]

In the meantime, you can add it as a quickdrop shortcut.  See the LabVIEW help for details.

[F._Schubert]

If you can live with a double shortcut like Ctrl+N, Ctrl+I, you can try to add it as 'wizard' in my hack into the lv_new_vi hook. See in the LAVA CR.

Felix