Darren's Weekly Nugget 08/31/2009

[Darren]

A while back, I wrote a blog post about my preferred Tools > Options settings.  Today I'm going to highlight a few of those, and some others, that make my life easier as a LabVIEW programmer.  Note that I used LabVIEW 2009 to compose this list, so the organization might be slightly different if you're using an older LabVIEW version:

• Front Panel > General > Connector pane terminals default to Required: CHECKED - This option often saves me some debugging time that I used to spend discovering instances where I forgot to wire a new terminal on a subVI I've written.
• Block Diagram > General > Auto-insert Feedback Node in cycles: UNCHECKED - Every time I'd see a Feedback Node magically appear in my code while wiring, I didn't want it there.  With this option unchecked, Feedback Nodes only appear if I actually drop them.
• Block Diagram > Wiring > Enable auto wiring: CHECKED - Gets the wiring right 95% of the time, and I just press the spacebar the other 5% of the time to drop the object without auto wiring.
• Controls/Functions Palettes > Loading > Load palettes during launch - Assuming you haven't been hiding under a rock for the past year, you should already know that this is the option you must select if you want Quick Drop to be immediately usable after launching LabVIEW.
• Environment > General > Skip Getting Started window on launch: CHECKED - Just saves me some launch time speed that I lost with the Load palettes during launch selection.
• Environment > General > Maximum undo steps per VI: 99 - I don't think I've ever gone back 99 steps, but I know I've gone back more than 8 (the old default value) many times, and I've probably gone back more than 30 (the new LabVIEW 2009 default value) a few times too.
• Environment > Saving VIs > Enable automatic saving for recovery: CHECKED - This option has really saved me a few times when LabVIEW decided that it just couldn't go on anymore.
• Source Control: ENABLED -We use Perforce for source control in LabVIEW R&D, and it's really handy to be able to check in/out my VIs directly from the LabVIEW project window. 

 Are there any other Tools > Options settings that make your life easier?

[TCPlomp]

Does Christina know you don't use the 'Getting Started Window'?

I for myself really like the window, gets me fast to my last used projects (check the new token MaxGSWRecentProjects=10).

I uncheck 'Drop terminals as icons', just doesn't feel right. However when I create an XControl I try to force the user to show the icon instead of the terminal ( ).

Ton

[altenbach]

It might help to show which settings are already as desired by default. ( A large portion are!). 😄

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Darren wrote:

Block Diagram > General > Auto-insert Feedback Node in cycles: UNCHECKED - Every time I'd see a Feedback Node magically appear in my code while wiring, I didn't want it there.  With this option unchecked, Feedback Nodes only appear if I actually drop them.

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I agree! And I think this should not be enabled by default. Sometimes we see beginners code containing feedback nodes that defy all logic and I usually conclude that they got inserted automagically because things got wired without thinking.

A feedback node is not something to "fix" a broken wire, but something that requires understanding and explicit manual placement!

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Darren wrote:

Environment > General > Maximum undo steps per VI: 99 - I don't think I've ever gone back 99 steps, but I know I've gone back more than 8 (the old default value) many times, and I've probably gone back more than 30 (the new LabVIEW 2009 default value) a few times too.

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This does not really help too much, because there are still way too many operations that clear the undo buffer. 😞

Even if you set it to 99, chances are that there are significantly fewer undo steps available, even after hours of editing.

[PhillipBrooks]

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Darren wrote:

• Environment > Saving VIs > Enable automatic saving for recovery: CHECKED - This option has really saved me a few times when LabVIEW decided that it just couldn't go on anymore.

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That's a quite a diplomatic way of saying 'crash'. Not that LabVIEW has ever done that

[lvABC]

Front Panel > Front Panel Grid > Show front panel grid: CHECKED – Setting value 5 for Default panel grid size (pixels), helps me to resize control/indicator properly with minimum impact on size.

Menu Shortcuts> Window > Tile Left and Right: Remove (Ctrl+T) - Shortcut (Press key combination) settings. Only God knows how many times I had accidentally pressed Ctrl+T, instead of Ctrl+R, and said ooooops!

Message Edited by lvABC on 09-02-2009 05:24 PM

[Darren]

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lvABC wrote:

Menu Shortcuts> Window > Tile Left and Right: Remove (Ctrl+T) - Shortcut (Press key combination) settings. Only God knows how many times I had accidentally pressed Ctrl+T, instead of Ctrl+R, and said ooooops!

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Excellent!!!  I never even thought about removing the shortcut entirely!  Ctrl-T, you...are...outta here!

[Ray.R]

 Good nugget Darren.

 The very first thing I do when I show up in front of the computer at a client site or installing a fresh version of LabVIEW is to set the Options.  

I totally agree that the automatic feedback node should never be set as default.  As a matter of fact, it should be removed from the Options list.

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Darren wrote:

• Block Diagram > Wiring > Enable auto wiring: CHECKED - Gets the wiring right 95% of the time, and I just press the spacebar the other 5% of the time to drop the object without auto wiring.

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 I've always disabled the auto wiring because of bad experiences with it with LV7.x  It was driving me nuts (which became a permanent condition)

I didn't know the trick with the spacebar.  Maybe I'll try it again with LV2k9 when I get a chanceto work with it.

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Darren wrote:

• Controls/Functions Palettes > Loading > Load palettes during launch - Assuming you haven't been hiding under a rock for the past year, you should already know that this is the option you must select if you want Quick Drop to be immediately usable after launching LabVIEW.

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Unfortunately, I have been hiding under a rock... 😞  A Unix based rock called VxWorks.  

I always use the palettes and want them near.  I also right click to get the pallette.  I do sometime struggle with setting the palettes to my liking..  Although I do recall that we can copy some sort of ini file which will "copy" our settings from one PC to another and make that life easier...  I seem to recall  tst posting something about it.

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Darren wrote:

• Environment > Saving VIs > Enable automatic saving for recovery: CHECKED - This option has really saved me a few times when LabVIEW decided that it just couldn't go on anymore.

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Very important.  It's been useful a few times already. :)

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Darren wrote:

• Source Control: ENABLED -We use Perforce for source control in LabVIEW R&D, and it's really handy to be able to check in/out my VIs directly from the LabVIEW project window. 

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I also use Perforce at the moment...  or rather when coding with LabVIEW.

[parthabe]

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Ray.R wrote:

I've always disabled the auto wiring because of bad experiences with it with LV7.x  It was driving me nuts (which became a permanent condition)

I didn't know the trick with the spacebar.  Maybe I'll try it again with LV2k9 when I get a chanceto work with it.

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Ray, I suggest you enable auto-wiring & disable auto wire-routing. IMO, the latter is the actual culprit in making people hate auto-wiring totally, instead.

Also, I uncheck the option Lock automatic tool selection. But I work with auto-tool ON.

Whenever I want to get the desired tool, I just keep pressing the Tab key till I get the correct one. The only times I shift rt-click on the Fp is when I need to get the wiring tool for the Connector Pane. That also I(we) will get automatically if I(we) correctly decide first itself to rt-click on the VI icon & choose Show Connector option.

[JK1]

Block diagram: Enable automatic error handling in  new VIs

Block diagram: Enable automatic error handling dialogs

These are two other options i disable when i install LabVIEW.  Generally error handling will be done using simple/general error handler vi's.Enabling the above two options will pop up errors in exe too, which might not be the desired operation.  When these two options are enabled LabVIEW pops up the error dialog indicating the error automatically.

When error handling techniques are to be reinforced disabling these options will provide the right execution feel.

[Broken_Arrow]

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JK1 wrote:

Block diagram: Enable automatic error handling in  new VIs

Block diagram: Enable automatic error handling dialogs

.... Enabling the above two options will pop up errors in exe....

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I didn't know that. Thanks!