Why would you want something to blink for less than a second, when the blinking rate is 1 second? It just isn't logical.
When I want something to blink, it is because I want to draw attention to an indicator, such as an out of range condition, that is going to last for at least an extended period of time, multiple seconds, to minutes or longer. I'll use the blinking property because it is a kind of "fire and forget" property. I turn on blinking, then I don't have to worry about any special code to actually execute the blinks. The blinking condition is going to last long enough that I really don't care whether it is on or off for the first half second.
If I want to highlight something that has such tight timing constraints that it will last for only a second or two, or less, than the blinkng property is the wrong thing to use. I'll set up my own system where I can have precise control over when it turns on and off and how rapidly it does that so that I can clearly signal something on that indicator that has an event lasting for less than a second.
I'm going to kudo your idea because I think it is logical that upon turning on a blinker, the first state would be ON. But I don't think its logical to use a blinker in the use case you are describing, so if the idea was never implemented, I don't think it would really matter.
ouadji: I thought the blink started from whatever state you flipped into... so if you want the behavior you describe, set the Boolean Value to True and then turn on blinking.
I don't think ouadji is talking about the whether the true or false state of the boolean, but whether the blink is "hot" or "out" when the blinking is first turned on. I'd argue that using an LED is a bad example, and in general using blinking for LEDs would be confusing because not only to you have the True or False to look at (lit or unlit), but also the state of the blink (default "yellow" or the "lit" or "unlit" color). The concept of blinking makes much more sense for things like numeric indicators or maybe even push buttons.
My comment was that if knowing that blinking is going on is important, then toggling the true/false state creates an immediate visual change and the blink then separates from there. If you don't want that, then the current behavior is exactly correct -- the user's attention isn't pulled by a short-lived process. So if he wants a visual difference to happen even on short blinks, he should toggle the Boolean at the same time that he turns on blinking and do the same again when he turns off blinking.
but whether the blink is "hot" or "out" when the blinking is first turned on (yes)
ok, it's a point of view RavensFan. (and i agree "also" with this point of view)
but ...if "blinking" would start with "true" (and not "false"), then this property could be used also with a short period.
Start the "blinking" with "false" has no meaning, it would be much better to start with "true" ... and more logical !
When you trigger an action, you don't wait 1 sec before you start this action.
and as i said, with this behavior, (with the "first turned on" = true) the use of this property could be possible with events whose duration are less than 1 sec.
Why "false" when the blinking is first turned on ???? why this choice ???
> Start the "blinking" with "false" has no meaning, it would be much better to start with "true" ... and more logical !
You missed my point then.
> When you trigger an action, you don't wait 1 sec before you start this action.
Yes, this is *exactly* what you do for several types of UI alerts.
Think about the mouse "wait" cursor. Before any operation, we tell it to flip to the "wait" cursor. After the operation, we tell it to flip back. The mouse cursor function always delays a quarter second (or so... I forget the exact amount) before actually flipping over to the wait cursor. That makes it so that very short operations never get seen by the mouse AND we can have easy-to-write code. If it flipped over immediately, we'd have to write a lot of timer testing code around every single operation, and have to trigger the flip in the middle of the operation somewhere. Very messy!
The same thing applies to blinking. The current model lets you write the "only if this goes for a while should we notify the user." It also lets you write your version as long as you toggle the boolean value as part of turning on blinking.
Declined for reasons listed here: http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW-Idea-Exchange/Blinking-must-start-with-quot-true-quot-not-false/idc-...