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P@Anand

Launch Controls in Block Diagram directly

Status: Declined

Any idea that has received less than 4 kudos within 4 years after posting will be automatically declined.

While creating a sub vi mostly I don't bother about how the front panel looks and also while coding its easy to take the constants from the function palette. What we will do if we need a control in the block diagram.

 

Method 1: Select a constant and then convert that into a control

 

Method 2: Go to the front panel and place the control that is required.

 

Instead of doing these things it would be best to be able to place a Control in the Block diagram (Even the error clusters). This may be implemented by

 

Right click mouse to launch Function palette --> Place the mouse pointer over the contant --> Press CTRL and Drag the constant to the Block Diagram. Control is created. I was having this in mind for a long time but not able to post. I am not sure whether it has been already posted.

 

 Place control.png

 

 

 

 

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The best solution is the one you find it by yourself
8 Comments
Knight of NI

This sort of blurs the line between front panel and block diagram, and I think it might make things more confusing for new users. Perhaps a more useful alternative is to be able to do a "replace with control" on an existing constant on the block diagram?

P@Anand
Trusted Enthusiast

But again its equal to Change to control only. Lot of time I have done placing a constant and change it to control so my thought is to remove that and it easy to place a control in the BD.

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The best solution is the one you find it by yourself
AristosQueue (NI)
NI Employee (retired)

I've often thought it would be useful to put FPTerminals in the palettes. You can build merge VIs with just a single control that you add to the Functions palette. Add one for the control and one for the indicator. I used to do that for myself but got tired of updating it for each new build of LabVIEW.

 

Holding down the control key is a magic shortcut that no one can discover in the interface unless they read documentation or are lucky enough to hear it through the grapevine. Putting the FPTerms in the palettes would, to me, be a better solution.

dthor
Active Participant

@Aristos Queue wrote:

Holding down the control key is a magic shortcut that no one can discover in the interface unless they read documentation or are lucky enough to hear it through the grapevine.


So you're saying that this is going to be a secret shared only by us Idea Exchange guys? Yay, bonus!

 

 

Anyway, I don't know how I feel about adding even more stuff to the BD palettes. Seems like it would add a lot of clutter. The key-combination idea isn't half bad (crtl for control, alt for indicator), but then you'd be limited to essentially numerics and strings being placed as Controls/Indicators, as those are pretty much the only items that have constants associated with them.

 

For me, I need more convincing before Kudoing this Idea.

 

P@Anand
Trusted Enthusiast

dthor still you have lot more constants that we use them as controls in sub vi's

 

Enum - I mostly use while creating LV2G, Ring constants, Path constants, Boolean constant, Time stamp constant, color box constant, Refnum constant, and finally Error cluster constant (Every sub vi needs it - till now before 2011 I was creating error cluster by placing an inbuilt sub vi theh create an Control for error and delet the sub vi.)

 

I like the idea of using CTRL for Control and Alt for Indicator. Thats a good way of implementing it.

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The best solution is the one you find it by yourself
JackDunaway
Trusted Enthusiast

smercurio_fc wrote: This sort of blurs the line between front panel and block diagram

 We must be on the same wavelength...

johnsold
Knight of NI

I am not convinced that this is worthwhile.

 

When a node or wire already exists on the BD, it is straightforward to context-click >> Create ... Control or Indicator.

 

If you need to create a more complex FP object like graphs, enums, rings, ..., you will need to be on the FP anyway.

 

The poorly documented or undocumented correlation between the mapping of the BD and the FP means you have no idea and less control over where the FP object will appear (or not).

 

Ctrl and Alt will not work on the Mac because you already need the (non-standard) Ctrl for context-clicking.

 

Lynn

Darren
Proven Zealot
Status changed to: Declined

Any idea that has received less than 4 kudos within 4 years after posting will be automatically declined.