Probe switcheroo

[altenbach]

Sometimes I have several parallel array wires and I want to probe one of them with a graph probe. During debugging, I notice that I actually want to probe one of the other wires instead.

Current procedure:

Create an new probe on the other wire. If we do that many times, we will have so many probes as to make it difficult to keep track of them all.

-or-

Create a new probe on the other wire and delete the old probe. Several steps.

Wouldn't it be nice if we could Control-click on a probe number on the diagram, get the switcheroo cursor, and then click on a different wire of the same type to move the probe over. It would work very similar to how we currently are able to swap terminals on the connector.

Summary: Allow switcheroo on probes 😄

[AristosQueue (NI)]

I've never had this issue, so I'm not going to kudos the idea myself, but I'll offer a modification that would make this even easier to use:

Make probe dots a draggable object and you click-and-drag it from one wire to the other wire that you want to probe. That would be even fewer clicks. Avoids the stateful "now I am in switcheroo" mode.

[JB]

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AristosQueue a écrit :

I've never had this issue, so I'm not going to kudos the idea myself, but I'll offer a modification that would make this even easier to use:

Make probe dots a draggable object and you click-and-drag it from one wire to the other wire that you want to probe. That would be even fewer clicks. Avoids the stateful "now I am in switcheroo" mode.

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Very nice idea !

[LukeASomers]

I like the alternate suggestion better, but either would be good.

[Yamaeda]

I vote for AQs tweaked version!

[Mr._Jim]

I "second" the draggable probes!

Should it be a new idea, or is that what we're voting on?

[Manzolli]

Draggable probes please!

[altenbach]

I am all for expanding this idea to a more generically "allow switchable probes" or similar. My idea of Stephen's draggable probes would be as follows:

• A probe could be clicked and dragged, at which time the cursor would turn into a probe cursor to be able to better aim at the new target wire.
• If we would release the mouse while not over a compatible wire or in a blank area, the probe would snap back to the original location.
• If we hover over a compatible target wire (same datatype!), the wire would start flashing to indicate the target selection and releasing the mouse would move the probe.
• If "retain wire values" is enabled, we would immediately see the new wire value. If not, the probe woud revert to "no data seen yet".

(An extension would be to allow temporary probe connections for the duration of "mouse down hover", similar to troubleshooting a circuit board with a multimeter. I.e. the new value would temporarily show on the probe display when dragged (but not yet released) over a compatible wire)

[Manzolli]

@altenbach: Why stick to a compatible wire? Most of the time up to three probes are enough. Probes reuse is a nice way to keep both BD and Probe watch Window clean.

All other aspects I agree.

[altenbach]

> Why stick to a compatible wire?

I guess if you use a default probe, the probe could change to a different type if moved, but I often use custom probes (e.g. graphs or charts), and I am not sure what you think should happen if I switch to a path wire (for example) and later back to an array. If it would change to a path probe, it would need to remember to go back to a graph.

I think the idea is most useful for non-default probes, because they are harder to create (many more mouse movements and clicks).

[Manzolli]

I think it should work following this rules:

• Default probes: adapt (change automatically) to to the new wire data type if necessary;
• Custom probe: keep the custom probe if moved to a wire with the same kind of data, otherwise adapt to the new data type.

To avoid loosing a custom probe, as an option, the second rule can be changed to reject the move like moving to a non "probable" object.