Tentative bug report: property node (and other objects) resizes structure in which they are dropped even when this is not needed

[X.]

This one has bugged me for a while, so, since I am in a mood to report annoying features, here it is:

On the diagram, when you drop an object that could have its size increased by user action (for instance a property node in which you chose "Value", which is a short property, but you could later change this to a "longer" one, which admittedly might require more space on the diagram), a case structure in which you drop it, will automatically increase its size.

Let me illustrate this with ONE example (can be reproduced with other objects such as enums, clusters, etc...).

Here is a simple diagram:

Note that I am going to create a property node from the front panel. This, for a reason that makes the beauty of this "feature", is very important. Apparently, if you create the property node from the diagram, nothing weird happens. The exact location where I will drop the node is not very important but needs to be close enough from the border.

Here is the result (LV 2011 but as I said, this has bugged me for a few versions already):

Basically, the case structure (and the whole diagram as a matter of fact) has expanded.

This is particularly annoying, say, when you are creating a diagram with 10 cases in a case structure and you start dropping things such as property nodes in each case: the structure keeps growing, and growing, and growing...

That also works with Event structure, and I am ready to bet, with other as well.

As I said, it is also not limited to Property nodes. I have noticed that this happens if you drop a cluster constant that contains an enum (presumably because some of the enumerated strings are longer than others).

I could speculate why this is the case, but that is not my job.

[Ben]

You are much more tolerant than myself. Almost everything about the "auto-explode" option iritates me.

The "why" part may tell us if this is a bug or not. I'd start looking at the setting for diagram clean-up spacing and prefered lable allignments to see what makes the prop node look larger than it is (example, hidden claption... maybe).

Ben

[X.]

Good point: a way to remove this irritating behavior is to disable the "Place Structure with Auto Grow enabled".

[X.]

Actually, this might not be true. I found a variant of this behavior. With "Place Structure with Auto Grow enabled" unchecked, here is what I observed while dropping a property node on my diagram:

Before:

 

After:

This is the expected behavior. The Property Node is partly hidden inside the Case Structure I dropped it in. Now that's not what I wanted to do. I wanted to drop it in in the innermost Case Structure:

The problem is that now this Structure has grown (as has the whole diagram) to leave space for the whole Property Node:

It is a subtle bug in the sense that I tried to reproduce it on a new VI with a series of nested Case Structures, but it did not result in this behavior.

Anybody caring to comment?

[Matthew_Kelton]

Did you confirm that specific case structure doesn't have AutoGrow enabled?

When you turn off the global option, it does not affect structures already created when the option was turned on.  You can check by right-clicking on the case structure itself.

[X.]

I do not 😞 The inner structure indeed was created (I guess) when LV had the option on. That's actually quite strange since its surrounding structure hasn't...

I actually did not know that this was a property that could be attached to a particular node... Is there any logic to that?

I would prefer a global option that turns auto grow on or off, or have a tool that allows me to force it so for all objects...

So forget about the previous post. I still stand by my initial report!

[Matthew_Kelton]

I see no logic in it whatsoever.  I absolutely abhore the autosize behavior.  I would be OK with a one-time autosize when I right-click on the structure and tell it to do so, but I find myself resizing the structures down because I had to type in a text block, then move it, or any othe rnumerous things.

I would preferr the behavior to be enable auto growing and disable autogrowing globally, then let each case have its own setting.  I woudl even be OK without each structure having its own setting if I could globally turn it on and off.

[X.]

Agreed. From what I understand Ben was saying above, this must have been repercuted to NI via numerous suggestions in the Exchange forum. Otherwise you should chime in.

[Matthew_Kelton]

I didn't see it in there, so I went ahead and submitted the idea.

[Matthew_Kelton]

I went ahead and did one for the one-time auto grow as well.