LabWindows/CVI Idea Exchange

Hello,

searching through the C code for specific controls first and foremost requires the knowledge of the control's name... If there are some hundred it may get difficult to remember and thus I typically have to check the UI for the constant name. Clicking on the control shows its name in the status bar, a welcome feature, but unfortunately I cannot directly use this text for searching...

What I suggest is allow copying this status bar field using CTRL+C; then it's possible to switch to the C code, press CTRL+F and CTRL+V... (The property browser is not really useful here because it only lists 'NUMERIC_7' and misses the associated panel)

Another, even more powerful feature would be to add a right click popup menu either to this status bar field ('Search C code for this constant') or to the control popup itself: Besides 'Generate control callback' etc. I'd like to see another entry 'Find control in C code'

Thanks!

Currently, there is no way to access the historical data on a stripchart.  The only way to manage this data is to maintain a separate buffer and update it whenever you add data to the strip chart, which is inefficient and tedious. Accessing data is possible for graph controls using the data attribute:

GetPlotAttribute (panel, PANEL_GRAPH, plotHandle, ATTR_PLOT_XDATA, &data);

 Something similar should be implemented for the strip chart, either as an attribute in the getTraceAttribute function, or as a standalone function (getTraceData, etc.)

we are daily dealing with "constant name" field's values that canNOT exceed 21 characters due to restriction on labwindows/CVI.

even the latest CVI/2009 SP1 v9.1.1 (450) has this restriction.

this is very tedious because our software makes use of this value to make cross searches in the registers' table of our component.

as such, if the "constant name" field's value must be trimmed down to <=21 chars to comply with CVI restriction above, this makes the cross-search unusable.

please increase this limit up to 32 chars (at least).

Pascal Janin

STMicro Grenoble France.

Somewhat similar to SetBreakOnLibraryError, I suggest the addition of a function that does a breakpoint when the specific attribute of a panel/control changes.
It could work like this:

SetBreakOnCtrlAttributeChange(panel, control, Attribute)

with also:

ClearBreakOnCtrlAttributeChange(panel, control, Attribute) // Use -1 to clear them all

SetBreakOnPanelAttributeChange(panel, Attribute),

ClearBreakOnPanelAttributeChange(panel, Attribute) // Use -1 to clear them all

Example of use:

SetBreakOnCtrlAttributeChange(panel, control, ATTR_CTRL_VAL)

SetBreakOnCtrlAttributeChange(panel, control, ATTR_VISIBLE)

If the label area is fixed size (i.e. option "Size to text" disabled) and is higher than the font height, it would be useful to have an attribute to set the text vertical alignment:

• to the top
• centered
• to the bottom

Now the text can be justified only horizontally (left justified, centered, right justified)

Even after using CVI for many years I still find the DirSelectPopup confusing, because it provides a file selector, displays files, and even allows to select files...

I would prefer an improved/modified function such that the DirSelectPopup only shows directories, does not provide a file selector, etc.... This should make it much more obvious that one is selecting a directory, not a file...

Thanks!

Similiar to LabVIEW, I would like to have a "save as" option to store all files within the prj-file to a new location (maybe also for store a cws, res all mentioned prj-files).

Would make it easier to handle over a CVI-project.

I am feeling that LabWindows/CVI lacks a feature that leads to confusion and to minor lack of productivity. When opening the Project File from Windows Explorer or another manager, CVI will start and open that particular project. However, if an instance of CVI is currently running, it will close the project that’s opened and open up the new project. This doesn’t seem right. Let’s say your’re working on a project and you want to open a reference project or an example from ‚Samples’ in order to find some information. Your project automatically closes and you must open it again. You have to search the project on the disk and wait for it to load each time you want to look for something in another project. But you only want to take a look at that example (or reference project), you don’t want to work on it! A workaround exists: open up an instance of LabWindows/CVI and then open your second project. And you must do that for each supplementary project you want to open, while not losing you project of interest.

The feature I think should be implemented would allow the following behavior: when opening a project, LabWindows/CVI will check to see if that project is opened in one of its running instances. If it is, that particular instance is brought into view. If it isn’t, a new instance of LabWindows/CVI will be started and the project will be opened. That way you reduce waiting times (especially when a big project is involved in this switch) and increase productivity.

This would make it a bit easier to edit an old project without the issue of upgraded UIRs because it might get loaded by the wrong CVI version and one edits and accidentally saves it before noticing.

Visual Studio installs a helper EXE which launches the right Studio for any SLN.

If MS didn't patent this , it would be a nice feature for CVI (and LabView?), too.

I was operating on Pop-ups,I felt need of feature like java.

In Java when we have display Message we can easily concatenate variable with message string by using '+' sign.

Ex.

    In LabWindows,when do message pop up,

   {

    int var = 3;

    MessagePopup("Message count","Message No : "+var);

    }

     such a feature should be there.otherwise we do some string operation then Display message like " Message No : 3".

    So it increases string operations and string operations gives problem in memory management.

So at least In API's such '+' sign for concatenation of string with variables should be available.

Even if it is C language supported.

Seriously, NI should look over the newer Visual Studio IDE's as well as NetBeans for some good ideas ...

Here's a few:

1.  When using the F2 function to find a previously marked spot, you can't easily look for the next bookmark going backwards or restricitng the search to the current module.  You can in Viusal Studio.

2.  There's no clue offered for the extent of a block - other IDE's either backlight the match braces (VS 2008) or draw vertical lines showing the block extent (a popular VB add-in tool does this).

3.  Refine the search selection to be current module, current project, or current workspace ...

4.  Allow concurrent builds of multiple projects within a workspace - VS 2008 allows this, in fact, the default is to build everything in the current solution (solution = workspace).

5.  Allow toggled commenting of multiple lines of selected text, rather than the "exclude" option that won't let you save excluded lines without commenting them - then the IDE lets you comment them, but not until then.  Same thing with un-comment.

6.  Implement a lazy background re-compile that re-compiles as you type - saves you a jillion CTRL-K keystrokes to do it yourself.  Couple this with near real time notification of compile errors as you type.

7.  Fix the &*!)$@^ CVI linker to allow 16 byte alignment.

8.  Implement full C99 (MS hasn't done this though and apparently never will).

9.  Dim conditionally compiled source that isn't going to compile - nothing is more irritating to me when editing than forcing yourself to ignore conditionally compiled code that's not going to compile.  It's tricky to make this work right but it'd stil be worth a try.  VS 2008 kind of does this.

10. Provide a pull down menu of functions within a module - this is better than the CVI source browser which is a PITA to use - ti's no wonder to me that this is the most requested improvement so far.

Hello,

I would consider it quite convenient having a simple CVI function, similar to GetPanelDisplayBitmap, providing a true screenshot image of a CVI panel.

As discussed here, the CVI function GetPanelDisplayBitmap does not provide a screenshot image of the panel, i.e. the bitmap lacks all OS-specific features (color theme etc.).

For backward compatibility reasons, NI should provide a new function, returning a bitmap that looks the same as if I would have pressed Alt+Prt Sc

Thanks!

Hi,

following the discussion here it turns out that at present there is some ambiguity in using the taskbar button of applications created with CVI: Clicking on the taskbar button gives the visual impression of minimizing all panels of the application, in fact the panels are just hidden, not minimized. As a result, the application will behave differently if you really minimize panels using the _ panel button, or if you hide the panels by clicking on the taskbar. In the latter case the new EVENT_PANEL_MINIMIZE event does not get triggered and the application cannnot know that all panels are hidden (for the user appearing to be minimized). Hence this new event is required to complement this functionality.