LabWindows/CVI Idea Exchange

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Child panels of CVI still don't have MDI behavior (that means Minimize, Maximize and Close button on the right corner of the titlebar). This is Windows standard!!

I know the workaround with Windows SDK functions to generate parent and child panels, but SDK child panels are not docked to the (CVI) scroll bars of the parent panel. That means, I would have to handle the scroll bars by myself, if a child panel is outside of the view range of the parent panel. Furthermore, the title bars of the child panels do not have the appearance of the windows standard title bars of child panels, they have the appearance of parent panels.

This is still the case with CVI 2010

Thanks

It might be handy if the increment and decrement arrows on Numeric controls (as well as numeric cells in Table controls) had the option to increment and decrement by a percentage of the control's value, rather than just a fixed value. Basically, I'm finding that I'm doing this type of thing quite a bit:

SetCtrlVal(panel, control, value);

SetCtrlAttribute(panel, control, ATTR_INCR_VALUE, fabs(0.01 * value));

This makes it so that the increment/decrement arrows on the control, when operated by the user, will change the control's value by a certain percentage of the control's value, rather than some fixed number. It would be handy if there was some way to automate this more, in the sense that the user interface could handle this for the programmer. I envision something along the lines of a new attribute like ATTR_INCR_TYPE where the programmer could set this to something like VAL_FIXED (for a fixed increment, as it behaves now), or VAL_PERCENT (the new proposed behaviour), and ATTR_INCR_VALUE would be either the fixed value, or the percentage. Or perhaps someone else may have a better idea on how to implement this. This would be especially handy for Table controls, where now I must loop through all the numeric cells on the table and set each increment value individually.

Also, note the fabs() above in the SetCtrlAttribute() line. This is needed as I get a library error if I try and set the increment value to a negative. Is there any reason that a value like -10.0 couldn't just be interpreted as 10.0 when setting the increment value?

Thanks.

In a Picture Control, with the option "Stick image to corner" the image is always sticked to the upper-left corner of the control.

I suggest that the user should be able to specify the corner to which the image should be sticked (upper-left, bottom-left, upper-right, bottom-right).

I've been thinking to this properties because I have some picture controls used as a background images, and I need the background isn't moved when I drag a splitter (see this thread)

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Decoration element

Hi,

designing a screen layout I frequently encounter the wish to have not only rectangular (and circular) decoration elements, but also one of the type shown below.

Only the upper right rectangular shape can be realized now, while the more complex shape on the left is what I would like to see added in the future.

Instead of two parameters width and height four parameters would be required (two heights and two widths), may be even a fifth parameter specifying the orientation of the shape: as shown, mirrored in x, mirrored in y, mirrored in x and y.

Without doubt grouping control elements is useful; unfortunately these groups may differ in the number and type of control elements.

Thanks for consideration,

Wolfgang

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status bar control

Over the years the look of CVI's control elements got closer to native Windows controls, e.g. by the direct use of native Windows controls such as the File Select Popup, which I would consider a welcome visual improvement.

What still is not available is a control element providing a Windows-like status bar, e.g. like the one of CVI's IDE.

I imagine a status bar which is similar to use as a menu bar, i.e. with a LoadStatusBar command, similar editing capabilities and the possibility to define the number and type of elements (text, image,...). Also the lower right part should resemble the typical Windows 'triangle', see figure below.

Thanks!

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We have recently dropped CVI (as of 2009) as an option for use with our many data visualization applications. The graphic performance is just too slow and clunky to put up with any longer and gets worse as we add features or try to make 'native looking' applications (that resize, animate, etc).

Things like dragging/updating cursors is noticably clunky when you have more than one graph updating (linked cursors across more than one graph).

Updating datasets in large tables is slow enough to watch it step through the rows. Even using suggest tips like using ATTR_CTRL_VAL instead of SetTableCellVal, when a large table has to update... it's painfully noticeable. Basically any operation that updates a large portion of the UI.

Another example, try to resize and move controls (as most other applications do) on the EVENT_PANEL_SIZING?

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that CVI doesn't use any graphics card acceleration? since workstation or netbook doesn't seem to make much difference in graphic performance.

Our clients notice when our applications look 'clunky' and 'slow' when compared to smooth, responsive apps/interfaces from competitors. It's often the little things that make a big difference in appearance.

Greg

I apologize if this has already been addressed but this was determined as a issue years ago and forced us to implement a workaround.

We use PloXY for large data sets (up to 16 MB has become pretty standard lately). To address lag years ago, we pared the data to be viewed to 4000 data points in background code and send that to PlotXY. However, when the user zooms - which is always, you must then go back to the original data to find the new best 4K data points prior to plotting the new data. The code usually works well but there are instances where it can shutdown unexpectedly - not often enough to fight through friutfully though.

As for an truly automated perhaps a more logical course of action is to retrieve the panel size and use that for the data sizing. Regardless, it would be nice to use the CVI built in function and then subsequent zooming etc could be possible via standard functions.

Hi all !

I have some idea , it's a small thing but it can really help ,

When working with multiple C / H files you can switch between the open files easily in the files bar above the code area.

But when I'm closing the CVI and re opening it the files position in the changes , if i not mistaken i think the it's re ordering it by the previous stack status.

It would be nice to have the option to set a file order that will remain even after shut down.

Thank you.

Graph improvements

Hello,

I have 2 suggestions for graph improvements.

1/ I suggested the first one a long time ago but it has never been implemeted so I try again trough this idea exchange board.

I would like to have the possibility to change the grid lines style to dash or dot. Today only solid is available.

I have written a routine to do it for printing graphs but as you can see it in the attachment it is not always working properly.

2/ It would be nice to have the possibility to set a percentage of transparency for the plots. In the example attached you can see if the green plot would have been behind the blue some parts would not have been visible. By setting the percentage of transparency of the blue one the green if behind the blue would become partly visible.

These 2 features are already available in the 3D graph so it would be nice to have them also on 2D plots.

Regards

Bertrand

New fonts would improve user approval

Actually, specifically a dot matrix font along the lines of the existing 7-seg one. I know it seems like a small thing, but at the end of the day presentation counts for a lot. Remember the days when HP kit ruled? Sure it was good at its task, but there was never a shortage of frequency counters. No, what it had in spades was good looks and a kind of exuded competance. UI's can do that too, as you know instantly when you see a bad one!

ps. There's probably less reason to include a set of Nixie tube fonts 🙂

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Set the angle of the strip chart axis names

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User Interface Events in Classic View

When you click on a control on a panel in the *.uir file while in the Operator mode using the Integrated View, you can view the user interface events that are generated in the lower left corner, as seen below in the red box.

However, if you prefer to use the classic view, these events are not visible in the floating window that contains the *.uir file when you click on a control in the Operator mode.

Knowing these events can be useful when choosing which events to create callbacks for, and clicking on controls is a very easy way to play around with it.

When using tab controls on a panel, every time you change the active tab in the UIR editor the file is marked as modified even if no real modification has been made on panels/controls. This is particularly annoying when you are simply looking at a UIR file but you don't want its date/time to be modified (e.g. in case the project has already been deployed to the customer and you want to keep the local copy of the UIR with the original date/time).

If your file is marked as read-only (same scenario as before: the application has already been deployed and you want to prevent modifications to it) you cannot even change the active tab page, neither in edit mode nor in operate mode (F4 - operate visible panel)!

It would be better in my opinion that a simple tab page switch does not forces the UIR to be saved.

I want to change the background color on a Ring Control drop down portion using the "paint tool" and then selecting the operate tool in the Quick Edit Window. When I select the "operate tool" to look at the background color of the drop down portion of the ring control it is always "light grey". Even if I change the color of the ring control using the paint tool the drop down background portion still remains "light grey".

Provide a mechanism to allow the changing of colors to the drop down portion of the ring control to be changed programmatically also. The current version of CVI 2010 does not provide this capability.

I have created tables with multiple columns a few times, and seem to always have issues with my column widths and horizontal scroll bars.

1) Scroll Bars will show up focused on whichever column/row was added last. So you if your columns go past your table width and the last column was last edited, it is aligned to the right. I believe this should always be left or top aligned. Just irritating that I have to ensure I change my row and column back to 1 so it is aligned properly.

2) There is not an easy way have auto-sized columns stay within the table size when fixed ones present. For example: I have 4 columns, I want the first three to be fixed width and the last to autosize based on the table size. Currently this doesn't seem to work out in my situation with or without scrollbars.

3) Be able to select the column title bar to select to edit that column. If there are no rows added, the user must manually retype which column they want to edit then click elsewhere to make it active. (Also true with no columns for rows)

4) Allow user to click and highlight and copy text, but restrict editing cells. (But be able to change them programatically) There are a few workaround with this such as double click event, but would be nice if there was a preset in the Hot,Normal selection list.

Feel free to chime in as I'm sure there may be a few I have not found yet. (Or perhaps I'm incorrect above and couldn't find it in the documentation.)

Seriously, NI should look over the newer Visual Studio IDE's as well as NetBeans for some good ideas ...

Here's a few:

1. When using the F2 function to find a previously marked spot, you can't easily look for the next bookmark going backwards or restricitng the search to the current module. You can in Viusal Studio.

2. There's no clue offered for the extent of a block - other IDE's either backlight the match braces (VS 2008) or draw vertical lines showing the block extent (a popular VB add-in tool does this).

3. Refine the search selection to be current module, current project, or current workspace ...

4. Allow concurrent builds of multiple projects within a workspace - VS 2008 allows this, in fact, the default is to build everything in the current solution (solution = workspace).

5. Allow toggled commenting of multiple lines of selected text, rather than the "exclude" option that won't let you save excluded lines without commenting them - then the IDE lets you comment them, but not until then. Same thing with un-comment.

6. Implement a lazy background re-compile that re-compiles as you type - saves you a jillion CTRL-K keystrokes to do it yourself. Couple this with near real time notification of compile errors as you type.

7. Fix the &*!)$@^ CVI linker to allow 16 byte alignment.

8. Implement full C99 (MS hasn't done this though and apparently never will).

9. Dim conditionally compiled source that isn't going to compile - nothing is more irritating to me when editing than forcing yourself to ignore conditionally compiled code that's not going to compile. It's tricky to make this work right but it'd stil be worth a try. VS 2008 kind of does this.

10. Provide a pull down menu of functions within a module - this is better than the CVI source browser which is a PITA to use - ti's no wonder to me that this is the most requested improvement so far.

LabWindows/CVI Idea Exchange

MDI behavior of child panels

Suggestion for a new percentage behavior for the increment/decrement arrows on numerics

Picture control: stick the image to a specified corner

Add a menu option for changing the Selection Mode

Decoration element

status bar control

Improved/Accelerated Graphic Performance

Graph plotting for large data sets - optimize for screen resoultion / speed

Saving Files order after CVI restart

Graph improvements

New fonts would improve user approval

Set the angle of the strip chart axis names

User Interface Events in Classic View

Prevent the uir to be marked for saving on simple tab page switch

Have Lab Windows CVI Provide Capability to allow the flexibility to change background color on a ring control

Add color picker as an option for Cell Type for Table controls

Improved Column Sizing and Scroll Bar Behavior of Tables

Implement a bunch of the Visual Studio 2008 editor features in the CVI editor ;-)

Longer Axis Names for Graph Controls

Default view for files in folders