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Gaulinmp

Quick Drop Suggestion List Order

Status: New

The quick drop selection list seems to have a random or otherwise unintelligable order. The most commonly frustrating example in my case is Bundle and Unbundle by name:

 

Smiley SadUseless Guess

 

I have to type more letters because the regex search on 'u' returns lots of results and they don't seem to be sorted:

 

Smiley MadUnbundle Quick Drop

 

When doing OOP in LabVIEW, bundle/unbundle by name is a very commonly used VI. Every time I want to insert it into a class/cluster, I have to type either the whole first word and a space, or use the arrow keys after the first three letters. What would be more useful is if Quick Drop kept track of the VIs I drop and count their frequency. At the top of the list should be the most frequently dropped VIs, then all the other VIs that match the letters typed so far. This way, because I use unbundle by name so often, I would just have to type U and it would be the first result:

 

Smiley HappyBetter Quick Drop

 

TLDR: Quick drop should learn from usage and prioritize results based on frequency of selection.

4 Comments
stbe
Active Participant

I use custom shortcuts for that, but this would definitely improve QD.

+1 !

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CLA
Daklu
Active Participant

Prioritizing frequently used QD shortcuts would really improve usability.  Currently I have custom shortcuts designed around families (i.e. all my structure shortcuts are prefixed with "st".  stc - case structure, stw - while structure, etc.) but this feature would help make the experience easier.

Darren
Proven Zealot

Help me understand how object shortcuts don't solve this problem.  I too drop Bundle By Name and Unbundle By Name frequently...Ctrl-Space-bbn-click and Ctrl-Space-ubn-click.  The reason I use object shortcuts (I have several dozen at this point) is because my hands instantly type them without thought...I never search through the list. Any change to the order in which things show up would not affect that muscle memory.

 

There is something you can do, though, to change the way things show up in the list.  Currently, a relevance-based matching is used on what you type...so in addition to the actual names themselves, keywords are also used, and a scoring system (the same scoring system used by the NI-SEARCH field in the toolbar) is used to order the results.  If you would prefer a simple, string match to the object name, check out this Darren's Weekly Nugget, where I talk about some INI file entries for customizing the behavior of Quick Drop.

Gaulinmp
Member

I think the simple answer is that without a learning algorithm, I have to do the work myself. Manually adding a shortcut each time I get tired of typing too many characters and hitting arrow keys seems kludgy. I don't know if you use Chrome or Firefox (maybe IE), but I find it immensely convenient that the browser learns my habits when typing URLs. To get to any one of a number of websites I only have to type one letter and it auto-completes. This learning based on usage is a cornerstone of most modern software, and I was just suggesting it be added to quick drop (which is hands down my favorite feature in LabVIEW, I have nothing but love for it).

 

So while yes, you are correct there is a work around, I think a more adaptable solution would be nice. Or at least a plugin architecture so we could filter/sort results before passing them to the window.