Place Terminal in a Floating window on Block Diagram when new Control/Indicator created

[derek@clustr.vi]

How many times have you created a control or indicator on the front panel, and have to spend time searching for the new terminal on the block diagram?

Let's put the the new terminal into a floating window tied to the upper right corner of the block diagram. The developer will know exactly where the new terminal(s) will be after creation, and can then drag the terminal to the proper location in the block diagram.

 

[AristosQueue (NI)]

The same suggestion could be made for when you create terminals on the diagram and the control on the FP needs to be in a similar holding pen.

[jcarmody]

I double-click it after creating it.

[AristosQueue (NI)]

> I double-click it after creating it.

So do I, generally, but that functionality is not "discoverable" in the interface, ie, there is no menu I can look at that says what the shortcut is, and Find Terminal is cumbersome to get to in the popup menus anyway. More over, it doesn't help when I design my entire front panel frist and then go to the block diagram for the first time and 10 FP terminals are all scattered about. I think it would be nice if they were in a more orderly spot waiting for me.

[derek@clustr.vi]

> I double-click it after creating it.

Double-Clicking is a good option if you create the control/indicator and go right to the Block Diagram to interface. However, many times there are other development steps that are taking place between the creation of the object and the wiring of the object. If this is the case and I'm working in the Block Diagram, I don't want to have to switch to the Front Panel, select my new object, then Double-Click.

[altenbach]

This should be made more general than suggested.

There should be a generic place where we can "park" objects if they are currently not connected to anything else. Of course created terminals (as described here) should start out there, but we should be free to place anything else in there as long as it is not wired up (e.g. terminals, diagram constants, property nodes, subVIs, functions, locals, comments, etc.). The front panel version is a bit more tricky, because front panel objects can be quite large. Anything in the parking area is treated the same as if placed into a diagram disable structure and thus does not break the code, even if they require inputs

I do hate it if front panel objects created  from the diagram with "create control" or "create indicator" end up outside the current FP bounds and double clicking the terminal pans the front panel to bring them into view, messing up all alignments (This is a constant problem, since we don't have this idea implemented and the action does not create an undo entry ;))

One possible implementation would be an icon in the tool bar (e.g. shaped like a parking lot sign) where we can drag any objects we want to park. If we click on it, it expands, (e.g. looking like a palette with FP objects as icons, and showing the label for clarity) and we can pick and drag things back to the diagram or front panel. Of course FP and BD should be independent, parking a terminal does not park the related FP object, and vice versa. (I might turn this into an independent new idea after working out some details.)

[altenbach]

Just a forward link to my expanded idea, partially based on my comment above.

[Darren]

Available in LabVIEW NXG. All new controls and indicators on the front panel are placed in the Unplaced Items Tray. A similar approach is taken for control and indicator terminals on the block diagram.