topic Re: Block diagram symbol cheatsheet? in LabVIEW

Block diagram symbol cheatsheet?

maherhome — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:01:06 GMT

Is there a block diagram symbol cheatsheet somewhere?

I'm a novice and the most frustrating thing for me is the myriad of icons representing variables and their different "types". I don't mean u16, fixed point, etc., as is depicted here. I mean shared variables, rings, and other things I don't quite understand yet. Case in point is the attached image from the FOC FPGA example (that I'll need to use).

The context help mechanism doesn't help.

Thanks,

Steve

Re: Block diagram symbol cheatsheet?

crossrulz — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 20:05:25 GMT

I don't know about a cheat sheet. But here's a few quick descriptions.

A house indicates a local variable

A globe indicates a global variable

Your constant there is a type def (triangle in corner). I can't really say it is a ring or an enum without seeing the context help or opening the type def.

Re: Block diagram symbol cheatsheet?

User002 — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:04:22 GMT

I found one reference here, by googling.

http://www.princeton.edu/~mae224/labmanual/labviewreference.pdf

Aside from that, I don't know of a cheatsheet at this point.

Re: Block diagram symbol cheatsheet?

johnsold — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:11:56 GMT

Some years ago LV came with a cheat sheet. It was probably in the LV3 or LV4 era. The link Andrew posted looks a lot like part of the manuals from one of the older versions.

The LV3 manuals were one of the best set of software manuals ever published.

Lynn

Re: Block diagram symbol cheatsheet?

maherhome — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:15:34 GMT

Thanks for googling, but it also doesn't show global and local variables ... and who know's what else I don't know about 😛

It would be nice if the context help were enhanced to include that information. That context help is a beautiful thing for a novice, but sometimes falls a tad short. Another funny one is when hovering over a "free label" the context help completely ignores the label (which I honestly didn't know what it was) and instead describes the surrounding structure (e.g. while loop).

Steve

Re: Block diagram symbol cheatsheet?

User002 — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:22:12 GMT

That is some excellent feedback. You should consider putting that here on the Idea Exchange.

Re: Block diagram symbol cheatsheet?

maherhome — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 21:30:26 GMT

Done.

Re: Block diagram symbol cheatsheet?

Mark_Yedinak — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 22:47:32 GMT

Well, I don't consider a bad thing that the help is light regarding local and global variables. For a novice I would recommend not to use either. Learn how to use data flow effectively. A mistake many novice make is to use lots of global/local variables and end up running into lots of race conditions. Learn how to use data flow correctly and there is very little need for variables.

I realize this doesn't address your original question regarding the cheat sheet but it nevertheless is sound advice for a beginner in LabVIEW.

Re: Block diagram symbol cheatsheet?

maherhome — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 23:09:30 GMT

Mark,

I appreciate your experience and have already steered clear of local and global variables after reading other material, but I think the context help should at least identify the construct being used. I shouldn't have to post to a forum to understand what a symbol represents.

Steve

Re: Block diagram symbol cheatsheet?

Mark_Yedinak — Fri, 28 Sep 2012 23:34:14 GMT

@maherhome wrote:

Mark,

I appreciate your experience and have already steered clear of local and global variables after reading other material, but I think the context help should at least identify the construct being used. I shouldn't have to post to a forum to understand what a symbol represents.

Steve

I agree that the help file should contain more information. My comment was more sarcastic than literal. The advice however was given in good faith.