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

Single File Distribution

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.

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'm not sure if this is a LabWindows suggestion so much, but it would be convienent if there was a library function to rename a TDM/TDMS file RenameFile() won't work here, as the .tdx file has the .tdm file's name embedded in it, so a simple rename breaks the files. The only options right now are to edit the .tdx file to fix the file path, or to manually recreate the TDM file under the new name by reading then writing all the channel groups, channels, properties, etc which is tedious. Thanks.

I realize that there may be open source solutions for this but I would love a robust easy to use email function on completion. Essentially, I am gearing up to run some larger batched analysis routines on a remote workstation for our user group. The analysis time and queue length will vary from minutes to hours (hopefully not days yet). I would love the option to email the user on completion, failure, or email me if something really goes crazy.

The problem with the current simple email solution (unless authentication was really recently implemented) is that almost every SMTP server requires additional authentication to combat spammers I suppose.

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Snippet manager

We hear all the time that should write code that is reuseable. It is difficult to plan so far ahead, so I listen to the preachers but seldom follow them.

However, it is clearely easier to use snippets, code fragments, that I put together for something, even tested them and I remember that I have done that once, but finding it again is too much hassle, it is just 3 lines, 5 lines of code. It owuld be nice to be able to manage such snippets, copy them, tag them,or even share them; I recon, there are snippet libraries out there;,out of sight, out of reach; but it would be really nice when the need arises, - you know that nagging dejavue feeling- than I could find them, bag them an use them... With time, even nice and practical libraries could grow out of them snippets... 🙂

/Layosh

A couple of minor things:

1. Change it so that if characters like 'µ' are used in the documentation tags, that CVI doesn't generate invalid XML comments files. Or if that is not possible warn the user if they use characters like 'µ' in the documentation tags.

2. Make it so that Insert Construct -> Function Documentation Tags (Ctrl-Shift-G) doesn't insert an HIPAR paramater for 'void' for functions that don't have parameters. Also make it so that it doesn't insert HIRET tags for functions that don't return anything.

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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.

calculate percentiles

I'll continue my quest for better statistics support in CVI... While LabView provides a VI to calculate percentiles of an array, there is no built-in function in CVI

In case you are wondering what the purpose of percentiles is: it is as important as the standard deviation for robust statistics, i.e. instead of calculating the mean and the standard deviation one would choose to calculate the median (possible with CVI) and the 25 and 75 percentiles; the difference (sometimes called the interquartile distance, IQD) is a measure for the width of the distribution.

Robust statistics is valuable of one has to deal with outliers.

Hence I ask for a function to calculate percentiles; may be, if NI is generous, they may even supply a function to calculate IQD

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we are daily dealing with "constant name" field's values that canNOT exceed 21 characters due to restriction on labwindows/CVI.

even the latest CVI/2009 SP1 v9.1.1 (450) has this restriction.

this is very tedious because our software makes use of this value to make cross searches in the registers' table of our component.

as such, if the "constant name" field's value must be trimmed down to <=21 chars to comply with CVI restriction above, this makes the cross-search unusable.

please increase this limit up to 32 chars (at least).

Pascal Janin

STMicro Grenoble France.

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When designing a UI it is sometimes necessary to have text composed of indices and superscripts, e.g. R^2, chi^2, ...

Right now this can be accomplished only by using several texts in different sizes and by manually aligning these text fragments. This is quite tedious

Hence I would suggest permitting simple control sequences to automatically have text parts in superscript, subscript, italics and bold within the very same text message (possibly similar to HTML)

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Hello,

I am using a graph with about a dozen annotations (not all of them are displayed simultaneously). Adding another annotation in the UI editor is not very convenient because I have to re-enter all the parameters glyph style, glyph color etc. Because there are about 10-15 settings I can not remember all of them and hence I have to switch back and forth between until the new annotation is ready...

it would be much more convenient if I simply could clone an existing annotation and then simply change its text

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As suggested about two years ago (http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabWindows-CVI/Is-it-possible-to-have-an-explicit-sign-in-numeric-controls/m-p/818370) I am still looking for a possibility to explicitly show the positive sign of a numeric value in numeric controls, i.e. the control should display '+6.789' instead of '6.789'.

Phrased differently I would like to have one more attribute 'SHOW_POSITIVE_SIGN' that could be set to

0: don't show the plus sign, i.e. display numbers as is implemented now, default

1: show plus sign for positive numbers

2: show plus sign for positive numbers and zero

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LabWindows/CVI Idea Exchange

MDI behavior of child panels

Single File Distribution

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

status bar control

Improved/Accelerated Graphic Performance

Add a library function to rename TDM/TDMS files.

Email with user authentication

Snippet manager

Add a library function that can retrieve version information about an executable/DLL file.

Documentation tags inprovements

movable windows within the IDE

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

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

calculate percentiles

remove restriction of max. 21 characters on "constant name" values

Change control backgrounds

Build Output: Prefer Errors over Warnings

enable subscript and superscript in UI text messages

cut & paste (clone) graph annotations

'+' sign in numeric controls