Darren's Weekly Nugget 11/20/2006

[Wiebe@CARYA]

"Darren" <x@no.email> wrote in message news:1164042611973-443442@exchange.ni.com...
Over the past couple of weeks, I've noticed a few posts, both on the NI Discussion Forums and the <a href="http://forums.lavag.org/" target="_blank">LAVA Discussion Forums</a>, where people were surprised to find some "hidden" menu or option.&nbsp; I figured for this week's nugget I'd mention some of the more common difficult-to-find items in LabVIEW that I've seen over the years:


- When using the Array to Cluster function, you must right-click on the function and choose "Cluster Size" and specify the size of the output cluster you wish to generate.&nbsp; I've lost count of the number of times I've had to answer the question, "How come my output cluster only has 9 elements, even though my input array has [insert number not equal to 9 here] elements?"


- The Read from Text File function in LabVIEW 8.0 and later has a right-click option called "Read Lines".&nbsp; When you select that option, and you wire in a value to the "count" input, the function will return an array of strings, where each string is a line from the text file.


- As <a href="http://forums.ni.com/ni/view_profile?user.id=64379" target="_blank">jattas</a>&nbsp;mentioned in <a href="http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=170&amp;message.id=215119#M215129" target="_blank">last week's nugget</a>, you can click and hold the "Step Out" debugging function to get a pop-up menu that displays the code path down to where the VI is currently paused, which allows you to step up to any level to continue execution.

- I couldn't find the LAVA thread on this, but someone mentioned recently a similar click and hold technique to display the palette hierarchy when clicking the "Up" arrow on a pinned palette in LabVIEW 7.1 and earlier.


- A lot of people aren't aware of this, but in LabVIEW 7.0 and later, if you right-click on a diagram object, one of the options in the right-click menu is to show a specific palette (usually the palette that contains that&nbsp;object or wire data type).&nbsp; For example, if you right-click on the border of&nbsp;a While Loop, you'll see a "Structures Palette" option, which will display the Structures palette.&nbsp; Similarly, if you right-click on an integer wire, you'll get a "Numeric Palette" option.&nbsp; I've found that it's really hard for me to get into the habit of using these, but when I do, it's usually faster to get palette objects I need based on existing objects on my diagram, than starting from the top-level Programming palette every time I need to drop something.


This is all I can think of for now, although I'm sure there are others.&nbsp; Feel free to post any other "hard to find" LabVIEW items that you've had to help people find in the past.
-D P.S. - Check out past nuggets <a href="http://forums.ni.com/ni/board/message?board.id=BreakPoint&amp;message.id=1669" target="_blank"> here</a>.<a href="http://forums.ni.com/ni/view_profile?user.id=64379" target="_blank"></a>
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Hi,


This is a neet little trick. I didn't notice it until I used 8.0, but it's in 7.1 too, and perhaps earlier.


With all functions that have two inputs, you can switch the inputs by clicking with ctrl hold. Let me explain. Wire two constants to an Add function. Hover above the function, so the connector (any of them) turns black. Press ctrl, and the tool changes to two little circles. When you click, the inputs are rewired!


Regards,


Wiebe.