LabWindows/CVI Idea Exchange

While developing code, having correct indentations is very helping in making sure you have all the right brackets and to see where your structures are nested easily.  Sometimes, whether by copying and pasting or just rapidly getting out a section of code, a whole segment might have incorrect indentation, which is tedious to correct.

This is where an auto indent tool could be a big time saver.  From somewhere like the Edit menu, where similar functionality is located in other development environments, you could select Format Selection to do a highlighted section or Format File to do the whole file.  Then, CVI can format the tabs for you:

Although this is a simple example, auto indent becomes even more useful when you have multiple nested structures and decide, for instance, to add or remove another nested loop.

It has been suggested much earlier here, but obviously passed out of mind:

When using 'Go to Definition' (CTrl+I) while in release configuration, CVI tells that no source code information was found for the identifier '...', because 'Browse information is not available in the Release configuration'... (still true for CVI2010)

This can and should be improved!

And it might be a good opportunity to also add the reverse process, 'Goto Declaration', suggested here

Using CVI I can't find an easy way of moving inside a source code file.

Based on my experience with other C editors, I suggest these 3 little features that I think are really useful:

• a shortcut to jump to the beginning of previous function in the same source file (CTRL + PGUP, for example)
• a shortcut to jump to the beginning of next function in the same source file (CTRL + PGDWN, for example)
• the current function where the caret is, displayed in the toolbar. It will be nice if you use a combo so that the user can jump to a different function with a simple mouse click (see attachment)

I have thease features in an open source C/C++ editor (Code::Blocks) I use for other projects, and I think they're really useful to reduce the coding time.

When you have large source files with a lot of functions, with CVI is't difficult to easily see where you are inside the file; moreover it's quite common scrolling the file jumping from a function to another.

In the project window you can organize the project files into some "virtual" folders (Source Files, Include Files, ...)

If you right-click on the project name, you can add a folder with the item "Add Folder...".

If you right-click on one of these folders, you can add one or more files files.

But it's impossible to create a subfolder of one of these folders.

Every large project has a lot of files (sources, ini-files, images, icons, ...), so I think it's quite common having them saved into different "real" folders and subfolders. If you don't explicitly add these files to the project, you can add them to the distribution kit browsing your hard disk "real" folders, but in this situation the absolute path of the files is used. And if you move all your project from a PC to another one you won't be able to recreate the distribution kit without errors if you don't save the whole project to the same folder you use in the first PC.

And this is a really big problem.

For files explicitly added to the project, instead, the relative path is used, and this is OK, so the best situation is to add all the files in the project window.

So it's necessary create a full structure of virtual folders and subfolders.



Hello,

I am glad that the event EVENT_MOUSE_WHEEL_SCROLL was added some time earlier to CVI. In principle, now it is possible to operate numeric controls, ring controls, etc. not only via keyboard and mouse, but also via the mouse wheel. This allows very smooth operations, great!

However, the integration level is inconsistent: While pressing the ARROW_UP key on a selected control will increase the value displayed in the control automatically, i.e. without the need of the programmer to react to a specific event, achieving the same result with the mouse wheel requires adding code to each callback. This is possible, but inconvenient as it adds a lot of overhead.

Right now, in every callback of a numeric or ring control that shall support the mouse wheel I have the following lines:

    switch ( event )
    {
        case EVENT_MOUSE_WHEEL_SCROLL:
            if ( eventData1 == MOUSE_WHEEL_SCROLL_UP )
            {
                FakeKeystroke ( VAL_UP_ARROW_VKEY );
            }
            else if ( eventData1 == MOUSE_WHEEL_SCROLL_DOWN )
            {
                FakeKeystroke ( VAL_DOWN_ARROW_VKEY );
            }

            break;
        case EVENT_VAL_CHANGED:
    ...

Hence I suggest

• either to treat a mouse wheel on a selected control like an ARROW_UP or ARROW_DOWN keypress (personally preferred)
• or to add one more attribute allowing to treat a mouse wheel on a selected control like an ARROW_UP or ARROW_DOWN keypress. In the UI editor, then there should be a checkmark (allow mouse wheel support), similar to the check marks initially dimmed etc. This attribute could be useful if there are concerns of backward compatibility - may be some users don't want to support the mouse wheel...

Thanks!

Hello,

Lets' assume a small structure or small array that one would like to have a look at during debugging. Selecting 'View Variable Value' (or Shift+F7) in the IDE puts the cursor on the corresponding line in the variable editor. If there are several variables, the variable of interest typically is in the last line of the variable editor. Now if one is interested in any element of the structure, it is always necessary to scroll down, which is quite inconvenient.

Hence I suggest to place the selected variable at the top of the variable view, allowing to see its first elements without scrolling.

Thanks