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LukeASomers

Do not let wires pass between terminals

Status: New

When wiring a VI, a cardinal sin is to put nontrivial wiring behind the VI icon. I see no use cases for this invisible wiring, and it directly causes many errors. In particular, accidentally wiring up the output of a bundle operation to the 'cluster in' box, so the bundle operation is completely ignored, yet the code looks perfectly OK.

 

This would be very easy to prevent. Help us not do things like that by letting us enforce the constraint:

 

When wiring or moving VIs or other structures, enforce the constraint: wires cannot cross the line separating two terminals.

 

By 'lines separating two terminals' I mean any of the interior lines on the wiring diagram that have at least one side being a valid terminal. For instance, I've marked in red the places wires should not go (using the terminal diagram, even though you never see the terminal diagram on VIs on the block diagram)

 

 

Capture2.PNGCapture3.PNG

 

If you do something that would cause such a wiring abomination:

 

Check to see if the wire simply crosses the border and then crosses back (a common case). If so, cut off the part that transgressed and connect the two  severed ends inside the terminal.

 

Otherwise, push the offending wire out the side of the VI. If this movement causes it to cross a boundary in some other VI, introduce a wire bend halfway between and solve the halves independently. If no solution can be found - VI's are on top of each other, say, complain bitterly (red X on wire).

 

Only enforce this constraint when editing (such that you're creating the problem), not when reading the code. That way, noncompliant code is not broken.

 

 

3 Comments
Intaris
Proven Zealot

I could agree with this.

 

Any corner cases where this would cause problems?

X.
Trusted Enthusiast
Trusted Enthusiast

You can actually show terminals of a VI on the diagram:

 

Screen Shot 2015-04-22 at 10.36.35.png

 

Screen Shot 2015-04-22 at 10.36.44.png

 

This being said, that belongs to the debate of whether things can be hidden or not. I am a "hider" so don't count on my vote on that one, even though I have been bitten by that issue in the past. I just learned from my mistake. I hope...

LukeASomers
Member

Well, okay. That wasn't really the thrust of the suggestion...